. /. RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/DSB/M/204 
24 February 2006 
 (06-0804) 
Dispute Settlement Body 
2 February 2006  
 
 
 
MINUTES OF MEETING 
 
Held in the Centre William Rappard  
on 2 February 2006  
 
Chairman:  Mr. Eirik Glenne (Norway) 
 
 
1. United States – Measures affecting trade in large civil aircraft 
 
(a) Request for the establishment of a pane l by the European Communities (WT/DS317/5) 
 
1. The Chairman  drew attention to the communica tion from the European Communities 
contained in document WT/DS317/5, and  invited th e representative of the European Communities to 
speak. 
2. The representative of the European Communities  said that his delegation would keep its 
statement brief since the EC's communication to the DSB spoke for itself.  He said that the EC had 
requested the meeting of the DSB to prepare th e ground for resolving a number of procedural 
imbroglios that had arisen in this dispute in good fa ith and with a view to reaching an effective and 
positive solution of this dispute.  During the Annex V process the United States had refused to 
provide information, inter alia , on 13 US programmes stating that they had not been explicitly listed 
in the EC's initial consultation request.  Unlike th e EC which had filed a request for a preliminary 
ruling in DS316 on 26 October 2005, also concerning measures which were outside the scope of the 
proceeding, the United States had refused to do so in DS317.  In view of the US inaction to clarify the scope of the panel proceeding in DS317, the EC had requested, on 23 November 2005, the Panel to 
invite the United States to make a preliminary ru ling request before the completion of the Annex V 
process, or take any other decision with equivalent effect.  The Panel had not issued such a decision.  
The final working procedures only required the Unite d States to make a preliminary ruling request at 
the latest at the time of their first submission. 
3. This situation of procedural limbo needed to be resolved quickly, since the US non-
cooperation deprived the EC of access to documents  essential to its case, in particular regarding 
NASA and the Department of Defense Subsidies.  The United States had submitted a supplementary 
consultation request in DS316 on 31 January 20 06, which had largely the same purpose as the EC 
request;  i.e. to explicitly list measures which were contained in the US panel request, but not in the 
US consultation request.  The additio nal panel request was without prejudice to the EC's view that all 
measures identified in the initial request for the establishment of the panel were properly before the 
Panel.  However, the EC was faced with a situation where disagreement on this issue had led to non-
cooperation by the other party in the Annex V proces s, and this needed to be addressed.  The EC had 
a very clear view on who should have acted in the first place to clarify any procedural uncertainties 
and who was responsible for the pro cedural limbo in this case.  Fina lly, he said that the EC and the 
United States had already started discussions on how to efficiently follow up on this request.  The EC WT/DSB/M/204 
Page 2  
 
  was willing to fully engage in this endeavour in good faith with a view to reaching a pragmatic and 
positive solution to this dispute. 
4. The representative of the United States  said that as Members recalled there was a long history 
to this dispute, which was a challenge that the EC had brought in response to the US challenge to the 
EC's subsidies to Airbus.  The DSB had first consider ed an EC panel request on 13 June 2005.  At that 
meeting, the United States had pointed out numerous  procedural defects in the EC's panel request, 
including that the panel request covered 13 alleged subsidies that  had not been covered in the 
consultations.  A simple side-by-side comparison of  the original consultation and panel requests made 
this difference clear.  Accordingly, the EC had b een on notice for months about the deficiencies in its 
panel request.  The United States appreciated that at the present meeting the EC was taking steps to 
address the concerns that the United States had raised in June 2005.  The United States hoped to work with the EC so that this new panel request would result in simplifying some of the procedural issues involved in the dispute. At the same time, there wa s some overlap between the claims raised in this 
panel request and those that were properly before the Panel that had previously been established. 
5. The overlap between the present request and th e EC's earlier panel request raised some 
procedural questions.  The United States and the EC had both recognized this point.  The United 
States had had productive discussions with the EC about how to address those questions, but those 
discussions had not yet reached a conclusion.  In light of these considerations, the United States was not in a position to accept the establishment of a pane l at the present meeting.  His delegation also 
wished to take this opportunity to note that the EC's panel request, once again, cited several measures that had not been cited in the June 27 consultati on request, such as measures taken by the State of 
Kansas, as well as certain projects of the Department of Commerce. 
6. At the present meeting, his delegation also wished to take a moment to react to two things that 
the EC had just mentioned.  First, the EC had referred to a consultation request that had recently been filed and his delegation thought that it would wish to take some opportunity to discuss that in the 
future with the EC in the first place.  He would not wish, since this matter was not on the agenda of 
the present meeting, to comment on the characterizati ons that the EC had ascribed to that consultation 
request.  Second, he noted that the EC had stated th at  the United States had failed to cooperate in the 
Annex V process and with that the United States had to differ.  He said that the United States had 
cooperated fully in the Annex V process.  Over the course of three months, the United States had 
submitted more than 40,000 pages of documents and 360 pages of narrative responses to questions 
directed to it.  By comparison, in the dispute brought against the United States, the EC had submitted 
far less than half this much material. 
7. The representative of the European Communities  said that the EC understood the reason for 
the United States to request a delay and trusted that the time would be put to good use in order to reach a pragmatic and positive solution. 
8. The DSB took note  of the statements and agreed  to revert to this matter. 
 
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