Brussels, 20/02/2008 (Agence Europe) -European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson welcomed the European Parliament's adoption, on Tuesday 19 February, of the report by Ignasi Guardans Cambó (ALDE, Spain), which supports and strengthens the new strategy proposed by the European Commission in April 2007 on improving access to third country markets for EU businesses. In a press release, the Commission notes that, since its launch, the strategy has helped: - strengthen the European network of market access experts; - focus on “behind the border” (non-tariff trade barriers) encountered by EU companies; - put in place teams responsible for market access (with members from Commission delegations, member states and professional organisations) in the biggest markets; - build up the database on access to companies' desired markets. Among the main successes of the new strategy, the Commission highlights the following cases: - in January 2008, the Commission threatened to refer Taiwan to the WTO after Teipeh granted compulsory licences allowing the state-owned Gigastorage to produce recordable compact discs (CDR) using technology belonging to Dutch firm Philips; - in January 2008, the Commission called on the WTO to consider customs practices in Thailand prejudicial to European wines and spirits; - in November 2007, the Commission had withdrawn discriminatory customs legislation adopted in August by Kazakhstan which incurred a trade loss of €8.9 million; - in November 2007, the Commission negotiated a system of export authorisation which allows EU companies to export certain animal products to Argentina without these products having to go through a testing procedure; - in July 2007, the Commission, through a WTO panel, got India to reform its import regime which discriminated against European exporters; - in June 2007, the Commission got Japan to put an end to its unreasonable ban on Tetra Pak packaging used by European exporters; - in June 2007, the Commission, again through a WTO panel, was successful in having Brazil amend its restriction on imports of retread tyres; - in June 2007, the Commission persuaded Pakistan to exempt European exporters of motorised vehicles from capital value tax. (E.H.)