. /.RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/REG34/M/2
WT/REG35/M/2WT/REG37/M/2
23 July 1999
(99-3098)
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements
Twenty-Third Session
EXAMINATION OF THE FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS
BETWEEN
SLOVENIA AND LATVIA;  SLOVENIA AND LITHUANIA;
AND SLOVENIA AND ESTONIA
Note on the Meeting of 2 July 1999
Chairman:  Mr. Andrew Stoler (United States)
1. This meeting was convened  in document WTO/AIR/1118.
2. Under Agenda Items C. XIII-XV, the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements took up the
examination of the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) between Slovenia and Estonia; Slovenia and
Latvia; and Slovenia and Lithuania.
3. The Chairman noted that this was the third round of examination of these FTAs.  The Parties
had submitted written questions and replies (W T/REG37/4, WT/REG34/4 an d WT/REG35/4) and the
Standard Formats (WT/REG37/3, WT/REG34/3 and WT /REG35/3).  The Chairman proposed that the
Committee continue examining these three Agreements as one group using the Standard Format as a
guideline and suggested that delegations indicate whether their interventions related to a specific
agreement or to all of them.  He then offered the floor for general comments.
4. The representative of Slovenia recalled that the last round of examination over these three
Agreements concluded with a call for further written questions and replies.  However, as no written
communications had been received by his delegation since that meeting, the Parties hoped that the
Committee could conclude the factual examination of the three Agreements and embark on thedrafting of examination reports.
5. The representative of the United States said that his delegation had questions that it intended
to raise at the meeting.  Observing that there were further questions of a factual nature over the
Agreements, the Chairman turned the mee ting to the specifics of the Agreements.
6. The representative of the United States said that while information had been provided on the
date of signature and entry into force of the Agreemen t, in some cases there seemed to be a significant
laps of time between entry into force and notification; in other cases, it appeared that Agreements had
been provisionally applied for several years but not notified until fully ratified.  Given that provisionalapplication involved deviation from MFN tariff treatment, notification should have been made when
the Agreements had been provisionally applied and he asked for an explanation for the delays in the
notification.  He requested that the Parties supply the dates on which the Agreements were
provisionally applied so that this information could be incorporated into the concluding report.WT/REG34/M/2
WT/REG35/M/2
WT/REG37/M/2
Page 2
7. The representative of Slovenia said that as the Agreements dealt with four small countries, the
delay in the notifications stemmed from the limited re sources of the Parties.  All the dates for the
provisional application of the Agreements were provided in the documentation.  For the Estonia-Slovenia FTA, the date of provisional applic ation was 1 January 1997 (WT/REG37/N/1).  Where
Slovenia provisionally applied the Agreement on 1 August 1996, Latvia immediately ratified the
Agreement (WT/REG34/3).  Similarly, Slovenia provisionally applied the Agreement with Lithuania
on 1 March 1997 while Lithuania provisionally applied the Agreement prior to that
date (WT/REG35/3).
8. The representative of the United States said  that the information provided indicated that
Estonia would ensure a sizable margin of preference for agricultural products from Slovenia and
asked if this, or any other provision in the Agreement, would hinder the ability of Estonia to make
concessions in future market access negotiations. The representative of Slovenia said this was not the
case.
9. The representative of the United States said that the trade data contained in Annexes I and II
of the Standard Format (WT/REG37/3), only provided information for tariff treatment relating to
trade in one direction, imports into Slovenia.  Woul d the Parties provide data for the trade flowing in
the opposite direction?  The representative of Latvia said that, for Latvia, the information requested
could be found in pages 11-12 of document WT /REG34/3 where there were two columns: one
represented total imports from Latvia and the other represented total imports from Slovenia.  The
representative of Lithuania said that the data for total imports from Slovenia into Lithuania was listed
in document WT/REG35/3.  The representative of Slovenia said that his delegation had originally
been under the impression that the information re garding tariff treatment on imports from Slovenia
into Estonia had been provided and said that he would return with the requested information.  TheChairman said that the Parties might submit the inform ation to the Secretariat for circulation at a later
time.
10. The Chairman said it appeared that the factual inquiry seemed complete, with the exception of
the trade statistics noted earlier, and proposed that the Secretariat begin drafting the Reports for these
examinations.
11. The Committee took note of the comments made.
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