. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/TBT/10.7/N/108 
9 June 2010 
 (10-3153) 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:   French 
  
 
AGREEMENT REACHED BY A MEMBER WITH ANOTHER COUNTRY OR COUNTRIES 
ON ISSUES RELATED TO TECHNICAL REGULATIONS, STANDARDS 
OR CONFORMITY ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES 
 
Notification
 
 
  Under Article 10.7 of the Agreement "Whenever a Member has reached an agreement with any other country or countries on issues related to  technical regulations, standards or conformity 
assessment procedures which may have a significant effect on trade, at least one Member party to the 
agreement shall notify other Members through the Secr etariat of the products to be covered by the 
agreement and include a brief description of th e agreement."  The following notification under 
Article 10.7 has been received.  
1. Member notifying:  FRANCE
 
2. Title of the bilateral or plurilateral Agreement:  Agreement between the Governments 
of the French Republic, the Kingdom of Spain, the Italian Republic and the Portuguese Republic on Recognition of the Test Protocol Applicable to Multi-Temperature Equipment 
Used in the Framework of the Issuance of ATP Certificates.  
3. Parties to the Agreement:  Spain, Italy, Portugal 
4. Date of entry into force of the Agreement:  Second half of 2010  
5. Products covered (HS or CCCN where applic able, otherwise national tariff heading):  
Multi-temperature equipment for use in the carriage of perishable foodstuffs.  
6. Subject matter covered by the Agreement (technical regulations, standards or 
conformity assessment procedures):  This multilateral agreemen t was concluded under 
Article 7 of the Agreement on the Internationa l Carriage of Perish able Foodstuffs and on 
the Special Equipment to be used for such Carriage (ATP).  Forty-five countries (25 of 
which are members of the EU) are currently contracting parties to the ATP, which applies to the carriage of perishable foodstuffs in the territories of at least two of the contracting 
parties.  Certain of these countries, such as France, have adopted the ATP as the basis for 
their domestic legislation on the subject. 
 The technical definitions and standards of th e equipment are set out in ATP Annex 1.  The 
equipment's conformity with the standards is established by a certificate, the model form of which is established in Annex 1, Appendi x 3.  The certificate, which applies to 
multi-temperature equipment, inter alia , nonetheless indicates in footnote 7 that the test 
procedure for such equipment is not yet determ ined within the ATP Agreement.  That is 
the purpose of the present multilateral agreement, which sets out such a test protocol in its annexes. G/TBT/10.7/N/108 
Page 2  
 
  7. Brief description of the Agreement:  Multi-temperature equipment for the carriage of 
perishable foodstuffs has been manufactu red in France since 1990 where it accounts for 
30 per cent of new equipment and 20 per cent of equipment in service.  It also accounts for 
a significant part of the overall stock of equipment in the other three countries concerned by this draft multilateral agreement. 
 In October 2009, France submitted a proposal for an amendment to the ATP Agreement at 
the annual meeting of the Working Party on Transport of Perishable Foodstuffs (WP.11) 
of the Economic Commission for Europe, in order to incorporate the present test protocol.  
Since the proposal was not endorsed by a ll contracting parties to the general 
ATP Agreement, France took the initiative, on the basis of Article 7 of that Agreement, of 
establishing a multilateral agreement with othe r interested neighbouring countries (Spain, 
Italy, Portugal) with a view to facilitati ng the movement of foodstuffs between these 
countries. 
8. Further information available from:  
 Direction générale de l'alimenta tion (Directorate-General of Food) 
 Service de l'alimentation  Sous-direction de la sécurité sanitaire des aliments 
 Bureau des établissements de transformation et de distribution 
 251 rue de Vaugirard – 75732 PARIS Cedex 15  Tel: 0149558421  Fax: 0149555680  E-mail: betd.sdssa.dgal@agriculture.gouv.fr
 
 
 Text available at:  http://members.wto.org/crnattachments/2010/tbt/FRA/10_2066_00_f.pdf  
 
 
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