ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the European side of agricultural trade negotiations during the Uruguay Round of trade talks. It draws on the bilateral negotiations and considers the interim agreement between the European Union (EU) and the United States that became known as the Blair House Accord and the specific reactions in Ireland and France. The chapter also focuses on the complexities of the negotiating farm trade within the EU. By the 1980s, European agriculture policy was also in crisis, but its problem was of a very different nature. In the 1980s, agricultural trade policies led to an escalation of friction among states engaged in the international trade of agricultural products. The rationale behind the Community’s negotiation strategy was based on the functioning of Common Agricultural Policy and its linkage of various support mechanisms: price supports, border protection measures, and export refunds.
