7:16 AM Jun 16, 1993
GATT PANEL TO LOOK INTO EC'S NEW BANANA REGIME
Geneva 16 June (TWN) -- The GATT Council after a prolonged debate agreed Wednesday to establish a panel to look into the dispute over the European Community's new single market banana regime due to come into force 1 July. The panel was sought by Costa Rica, Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Venezuela. While the new regime comes into effect on 1 July, the regulations and its terms are already notified and in place and thus has given rise to recourse to the GATT panel process. The request for panel had been made at the last meeting of the Council and, in accordance with the new procedures for virtual automatic reference, the EC, while still opposed, did not stand in the way. A GATT panel has already ruled as GATT illegal the present regime,involving quantitative restrictions on imports and preferential zero-tariffs for imports from the ACP countries, but the report of this panel is yet to be adopted. Earlier, the Council set up a working party to look into the application of Russia to acceede to the GATT. The GATT Director-General Arthur Dunkel had travelled last week to Moscow to meet Russian President Boris Yeltsin and receive the accession request -- a step without precedent in GATT that seemed to underline the attempts of the West and institutions controlled and run by it to bolster Yeltsin in his disputes with domestic opposition. While Yeltsin hoped for early consideration and action, it is clear that with all the political support, this will be a long process. In other actions, the Council following the UN General Assembly's decisions, decided that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (consisting Serbia and Montenegro) could not 'succeed' Yugoslavia in GATT, but must apply afresh. Till now, the Federal Republic's representatives had been allowed to sit behind the Yugoslav seat,, but without participating. Yugoslavia itself is still a contracting party and this has been left as such for the present.