WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3732/97 by Yves VERWAERDE to the Commission. General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS)
8. 6. 98 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 174/109 The Commission would like to stress that all the fire parameters foreseen in Decision 94/611/EC, including smoke production, have been retained, the latter being one of the five parameters to be measured in the ásingle burning itemí test. In addition, the international standard ISO 9705 has been maintained as the reference scenario for the whole classification system. The Commission considers that the European classification system, based on the European standards describing the six test methods, will cover all necessary fire risk elements and provide sufficient discrimination between construction products. The system will also respect the right of Member States to regulate building safety according to their different traditions, and to set appropriate levels of safety for their citizens. (1) OJ L 241, 16. 9. 1994. (2) OJ L 40, 11. 2. 1989. (98/C 174/169) WRITTEN QUESTION E-3732/97 by Yves Verwaerde (PPE) to the Commission (21 November 1997) Subject: General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) Would the Commission inform me of the state of progress in implementing these agreements in the audiovisual sector? Answer given by Sir Leon Brittan on behalf of the Commission (23 December 1997) As a result of the Uruguay round the Community and its Member States did not undertake any specific commitments on market access (MA) and national treatment (NT) on audio-visual services. In addition, exemptions to the General agreement on trade in services (GATS) most-favoured nation (MFN) obligation (1) were undertaken in order to preserve works of European origin; the possibility to maintain bilateral or plurilateral agreements on coproduction of audiovisual works in relation to distribution and access to funding; and, European support programmes such as the action plan for advanced television services, MEDIA or Eurimages. Therefore, the Community and its Member States have no specific MA and NT obligations to apply GATS principles or commitments in the field of audio-visual services. Furthermore, only a very limited number of World trade organisation (WTO) countries have commitments on audio-visual services and many have in addition taken MFN exemptions. The only problems on the implementation of those commitments raised so far are: (i) United States: on 15 February 1997, the United States undertook an MFN exemption on satellite transmission of direct to home, digital broadcast services and digital audio services in the framework of the GATS agreement on basic telecommunications. The Community indicated at the time that this MFN exemption was in conflict with the American obligations on audio-visual services under the GATS. It is not possible to predict yet whether the United States will take any measures in this sense, since the Agreement on basic telecoms only enters into force on 1 January 1998. In any case, the Community reserved its rights as to possibly challenging that MFN exemption in the future. (ii) Canada: although Canada undertook no specific MA and NT commitments on audio-visual services and protected some audio-visual activities through MFN exemption, this exemption does not protect film distribution activities. Therefore Canada is bound to the MFN obligation for film distribution services. The Commission is currently analysing the case of an European film distributor (Polygram) which claims to be suffering a discrimination in Canada vis-a‘-vis American distributors of film. The Commission and the Member States have had informal consultations with the Canadian government in order to clarify this situation and analysis continues. The Commission is not aware of any further problems of application of the GATS agreement in relation to audio-visual services. (1) This obligation applies unless it is specifically excluded, even if there are no specific commitments for a given sector