RESTRICTED  
WORLD TRADE  WT/REG/M/12  
 12 August 1997  
ORGANIZATION  
 (97-3376)  
 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements  
Twelfth Session  
 
 
 
 
 NOTE ON THE MEETING OF 14 JULY 1997  
 
 Chairman:  Mr. John Weekes (Canada)  
 
 
A. Adoption of the Agenda  
 
1. The Twelfth Session of the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements (CRTA) was convened in 
Airgram WT O/AIR/633.  
 
2. Items were introduced by the representative of Norway  and by the Chairman  for consideration 
under "Other Business".  
 
3. The following agenda was adopted:  
 
A. Adoption of the Agenda  
 
B. Examination of Regional Trade Agreements:  Enla rgement of the European Communities 
(Accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden)  
 
C. Other Business  
 
B. Examination of Regional Trade Agreements:  Enlargement of the European Communities 
(Accession  of Austria, Finland and Sweden)  
 
4. The report on this examination is being circulated as a separate document.  
 
C. Other Business  
 
5. The representative of Norway  said that, given the mandate of the Committee to consider the 
systemic implications of regional trade ag reements for the multilateral trading system, it would be very useful 
for the Committee to have a regularly updated list of notified RTAs currently in force.  Such a list should 
be comprehensive, in that it should comprise trade agreements notified to all relevant WTO  bodies.  This 
was a matter of transparency and would give the Committee an overview of existing regional initiatives and 
a better basis on which to assess the relationship between regional initiatives and the multilateral trading 
system.  He s aid that this intervention was for information purposes only and that he would suggest that the 
Committee revert to this proposal the next time the Committee dealt with the systemic aspect of its terms of 
reference.  
 
6. The represen tative of Korea  supported the suggestion made by the delegation of Norway and 
wished to add a request.  During the last Session, Members had received a paper from the Secretariat on 
the state of play of the examination of notified RTAs.  Perhaps the Secret ariat could consolidate that list 
with the list suggested by the representative of Norway so that delegations might have a clearer picture of 
notified RTAs.  WT/REG/M/ 12 
Page 2 
 
 
7. The Chairman  acknowledged the usefulness of this suggestion but pointed  out that there was a 
difference between the list of notified agreements to be examined by the Committee and the more 
comprehensive list of all notified agreements currently in force.  He proposed that the Committee revert 
to this matter at its next meetin g, and he thanked the delegation of Norway for indicating its intention to 
introduce this proposal, thus giving Members the opportunity to reflect on it.  Turning to the proposed 
meeting schedule (dated 17 June), he noted that in the June meeting of the Co mmittee, Mr.  Harbinson had 
emphasized that the schedule should remain flexible.  Since no delegation had raised any specific problem 
with the proposed programme, he inferred that there were no objections to the suggested format for the 
work over the coming  months.  If that was the case, he intended to contact the parties to the regional trade 
agreements coming under examination by the Committee to ascertain the format and timing availability of 
required information.  He would also make other appropriate arr angements with a view to identifying the 
presiding officer for each of these examinations.  In that regard, he wanted to inform the Committee that 
he had begun to hold consultations and would continue in that vein to determine replacements for the two 
vice-chairmen who had left Geneva, i.e. Ambassador L. Willems (Belgium) and Ambassador J. Ravaloson 
(Madagascar).  He would eventually take these discussions into a fully open informal meeting to ensure that 
the names which emerged were ones that would be sati sfactory, before formally proposing them. He had 
already received some suggestions and would welcome additional ones from delegations.   
 
8. The representative of Argentina  said that the calendar should remain flexible to take accou nt of 
situations that might arise.  He had noticed that some of the dates scheduled for the meetings of this 
Committee coincided with those of other WTO bodies.  For delegations such as his, which were unable to 
attend two meetings simultaneously, this had  posed a problem.  He requested that such scheduling conflicts 
be avoided when possible.  The Chairman  recognised that this was an important issue which had been 
brought up in a variety of WTO bodies, including the General Council.  He urged the Secretaria t to try to 
ensure that such conflicts be avoided whenever possible when planning meetings.  
 
9. The representative of Switzerland  said that he shared the concerns expressed regarding scheduling 
conflicts.  He suggested that one way to facilitate this would be effectively to eliminate the backlog. With 
reference to the finalisation of examinations at the conclusions stage, the exerci se had been started for at 
least one agreement, but there were a few other examinations for which the factual examination had been 
concluded as well.  His delegation looked forward to informal consultations on possible conclusions and 
hoped that the necess ary drafts would be made available in September to enable progress in this regard.  
 
10. The Chairman  welcomed the intervention by the representative of Switzerland.  One of the 
Committee's objectives was to try to make progress on th e backlog, and it was clear that a number of 
important contributions had been made in terms of improving the procedures for addressing it.  The 
Committee had indeed made significant progress in the examination of a number of agreements and had 
completed, i n essence, the factual part of these examinations.  However, the conclusions aspect of these 
agreements remained to be done.  With respect to the examination of the NAFTA, there had been some 
discussion on the nature of the conclusions.  The Committee shou ld try to complete the examination 
process, including the conclusions, on as many agreements as possible in the remaining months of this year.  
 
11. The representative of Japan  noted that, regarding the schedule of meetings, the elimination of the 
backlog was important.  But the preparation of conclusions was linked to systemic issues, so his delegation 
wondered if time to discuss systemic issues might be allocated in each CRTA meeting.  His delegation 
would also be interested in receiving a list of non -notified RTAs, in addition to the list of notified RTAs.  
 
12. The Chairman  reminded the Committee of his intention to convene an informal consultation that 
afternoon.  The objective of the informal session would be to consider the structure of future systemic work 
and the procedure for tackling the emerging systemic agenda.   
 
13. The Committee took note  of the comments made.