General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

The twelfth session of the Contracting Parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was held in Geneva, October 17-November 30, 1957, under the chairmanshipof Shri L. K. Jha (India). According to the press, one of the most important aspects of the meeting was the discussion of the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Economic Community. A committee which had been created by a GATT ministerial meeting, October 28–30, 1957, to examine the relevant provisions of the treaty and of GATT and to consider methods of implementing the interrelated obligations which governments had assumed in the two instruments reported to the Contracting Parties that its four subgroups had examined the treaty with respect to tariffs, the use of quantitative restrictions for balance-of-payments reasons, trade in agricultural products, and the association of certain overseas countries and territories with the Community. Agreeing that the preliminary examination had been useful but that a number of important questions remained unsolved, the Contracting Parties decided that the Intersessional Committee, with representation from all contracting parties, should continue the work begun at the session. Following its discussion of the trade aspects of the treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) the Contracting Parties decided that further consideration could take place together with examination of the European Economic Community treaty. On another aspect of European economic integration, the Contracting Parties agreed that the Intersessional Committee should follow developments concerning the proposed European free trade area being negotiated in Paris.