The Chairman said that this Special Meeting of the Council for Trade in Goods had been convened at short notice under Rule 2 of the Rules of Procedure by airgram WT0/AIR/1669 at the request of the European Communities. The item proposed for its agenda was contained in the proposed agenda in document G/C/W/341. He recalled that Rule 26 of the General Council Procedures enabled the CTG to take action in respect of an item for which documentation had not been circulated ten days in advance. The agenda was adopted.

2. The Chairperson of the Working Party, Mrs. Margaret Liang, making the report on her own responsibility, said the Working Party was established with the following terms of reference: to examine, under the relevant provisions of the WTO, the requests for a waiver concerning the new ACP/EC Partnership Agreement and to report to the Council for Trade in Goods. Since the Working Party was set up at the meeting of the Council for Trade in Goods on 5 October 2001, a good deal of work had been done. In her previous report to the CTG, made on 2 November 2001, she detailed a number of important developments that had occurred. These covered the questions addressed to the EC/ACP countries by eleven Members, the responses by the EC and ACP, and the detailed discussions that were held regarding both the questions and answers, as well as the document tabled by the EC concerning a revised draft decision for a GATT Article 1 waiver. It was her view that the work of the Working Party had been intensive and focussed and testified to the seriousness and diligence which all concerned delegations applied to the examination of the waiver request regarding GATT Articles 1 and XIII. It was her impression that there had been useful exchanges which went a considerable way to clarifying the issues under examination. The Working Party had helped identify possible elements that could form the basis of a solution which would be acceptable to all concerned parties. She had been informed by the concerned delegations that it had been possible, in further consultations, to build on the work of the Working Party by developing those elements that could form the basis of agreement on the waiver request for GATT Article I (contained in document G/C/W/187/Add.2/Rev.2) and GATT Article XIII (contained in document G/C/W/269/Rev.1). Consequently, she was pleased that she was now in a position to signal concensus among Members of the Working Party on the text of the draft waiver decisions contained in the documents cited. This concluded her report to the Council.

3. The representative of the European Communities thanked the Chairperson of the Working Party for all the efforts she and all the participants in this Working Party had undertaken in a constructive spirit. Further to recent discussions between his delegation and the delegations of Thailand and Philippines, on the subject of canned tuna, he confirmed the EC's readiness to enter expeditiously into full consultations with the Philippines and Thailand pursuant to GATT/WTO provisions, procedures and customary practices. Such consultations, to be initiated within four weeks of the date of this meeting, would examine the extent to which the legitimate interests of the Philippines and Thailand were being unduly impaired as the result of the implementation of the preferential tariff treatment of canned tuna originating in ACP states and would consider means by which the Philippines' and Thailand's legitimate interests could be addressed. These consultations would be completed by 30 April 2002. Upon their completion, the Commission would report to the EU Council of Ministers with a view to taking an appropriate decision. They had also agreed on procedures concerning the outcome of these consultations which were further described in a letter, which would be circulated by the Philippines and Thailand.