Uruguay Round: common rules for imports (repeal. Regulation (EC) No 518/94)

This proposal for a regulation sought to implement the new agreement on protection measures which was agreed as part of the negotiations of the Uruguay Round. The regulation transposed into Community legislation the new agreement which re-established multilateral control of protection measures and required measures which avoided this control procedure to be removed. Protection measures could only be applied to the conditions which were laid down by the agreement and in accordance with the procedures established therein. All measures said to be in the "grey zone", namely arrangements which sought to obtain a reduction in imports and exports, or in the regulated marketing of products, or any other similar measure, were therefore prohibited and were to be removed. The only exception to this was the arrangement between the EU and Japan concerning certain types of car, which was due to expire on 31 December 1999. As far as the Community was concerned, respect for the obligations resulting from the agreement involved the termination, within 180 days of the entry into force of the WTO Agreement, of any measure in the grey zone and the revision and modification of the common regime applying to imports, in particular as far as protection was concerned, established by Regulation (EC) No 518/94. The new regulation also introduced a number of details relating to: - the definition of "material injury", of "threat of material injury" and of "Community producers"; - the causality link which existed in the investigation assessment factors; - the rights of the interested parties; - the provisional protection measures to be applied in critical circumstances; - the determination of the quota levels (average level of imports over the last 3 years) and the arrangements for the distribution of a quota among all the supplier countries; - the duration of the protection measures (4 years maximum); - the progressive relaxation of the measures after a period of 1 year and the mid-term review after 3 years; - the succession of protection measures (ban on any new measures being taken for the same product within a period of at least 2 years); - the minimum import thresholds below which the measures could not be applied to developing countries which were members of the WTO. �