Brussels, 15/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - At consultations begun on Friday and Saturday in Geneva, under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation, the European Union, Japan, China, South Korea, Switzerland and Norway together denounced the "systematic abuse by the United States of safeguard instruments" and demanded the lifting "without delay" of the "protectionist measures" that have restricted access to the American steel market since 20 March. This meeting ended as a non-event, whereas the American position did not change an iota….Except that a "significant" number of individual exemptions…"exclusions" even, is now being proposed to producers affected by the close to shut-off of the American market. Interested parties have until July to submit their requests and will all be "examined with the greatest of care" and a "significant proportion accepted", Treasure Secretary Paul O'Neill has already stated, who met the countries in question in London.
The latter, however, warned that without an amicable solution to their dispute with Washington, and this before 6 May - date at which transatlantic consultations will end - they will turn to the WTO in view of securing a formal condemnation of the measure, a joint press release they published - a rare occurrence in trade disputes - stated on the eve of the weekend. The Union's Fifteen and the other five countries concerned by the new American restrictions state, in that same press release, that the United States was "violating the rules and modality of recourse to safeguards" and systematically abusing this instrument of commercial defence, although six of the measures have already been subjected to the WTO and each condemned by the Appellate Body. "If the American position does not change, we shall seek to secure that a dispute settlement panel be set up by mid-May", says a European source in Geneva. "We are not ready to wait any longer", the same source goes on.