Acceptance
29. The Committee had an exchange of views on the relevance of acceptance or notification systems as related to notification under WTO. The Secretariat indicated that a notification system would provide a comparative record of all Codex texts and food regulations in Member countries, for information purposes.
30. The Delegation of Uruguay expressed the view that present acceptance procedures were no longer relevant in the perspective of the WTO Agreements and although some delegations supported this position, the Committee could not come to a conclusion at this stage.
31. Following the proposal made by Chile, Mexico and Uruguay, the Committee recognized that countries in the region were aware of the new context created by the WTO SPS and TBT and agreed on the necessity to review the present acceptance procedure and to study a revised system of notification and/or acceptance, which should be simple and the least bureaucratic possible. The Committee therefore asked the Secretariat to distribute the proposals for consideration by CCGP well ahead of the 13th session of that Committee, so that countries in the region could consider them and establish their position accordingly.
Priorities
32. With reference to the request of the Commission for Coordinating Committees to identify Codex texts with major trade impact, some delegations indicated that they had not had sufficient time to consider this question in detail, and that further consideration of this issue was necessary at the regional level. It was noted that the decision to elaborate Codex standards and related texts generally corresponded to a need expressed by Member countries. The Delegation of Chile stressed the importance of receiving requests for comments well in advance to allow countries sufficient time to prepare their position.
33. The Delegation of Mexico stressed the need to identify areas where further standardization work was necessary to facilitate and promote trade in the region; trade problems specifically caused by existing standards would also require consideration.
34. The Committee agreed that further action in this area should be determined by the conclusions of the Commission and that additional information concerning the impact of standardization on trade might be required for consideration by the next session of the Committee, in the light of the Commission’s recommendations.
