Since then, negotiations have produced additional legislation, such as the Information Technology Convention, services and membership protocols. New negotiations were initiated at the Doha Ministerial Conference in November 2001. the obligation to meet specific binding commitments in each of the following areas: market access; Domestic assistance Export competition and reach agreement on health and plant health issues; The 1947 GATT initially applied to agriculture, but was incomplete, and the signatory states (or “contracting parties”) excluded this sector from the scope of the principles set out in the general agreement. During the period 1947-1994, members were allowed to use export subsidies for primary agricultural products and to impose import restrictions under certain conditions, so that major agricultural raw materials faced trade barriers in unusual proportions in other sectors. The road to a fair, market-oriented agricultural trade system has therefore been difficult and time-consuming; and the negotiations were finally concluded during the Uruguay Round. Agriculture has a special status in WTO agreements and trade agreements (signed in 1994 and entered into force on 1 January 1995), with the sector having a specific agreement, the agriculture agreement, whose provisions prevail. In addition, some provisions of the agreement on the application of plant protection measures (SPS) also concern agricultural production and trade. The same applies to the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) with respect to the protection of geographical denominations. In addition, the provisions of the agreement on agriculture are complemented by the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (OTC) and by technical assistance mechanisms. The reform of the 2003 CAP, which decoupled most of the existing direct aid, and the sectoral reforms that followed led to the deferral of most aid under the amber box and the blue box to the green box (61.6 billion euros in 2016/2017, see table below).
Aid under the “amber box” (AMS) has fallen sharply, from EUR 81 billion at the beginning of the period of the agreement to EUR 6.9 billion between 2016 and 2017, even with successive waves of expansion. The European Union thus largely respects the commitments made in Marrakech (72.38 billion euros per year) for the AMS. In addition, the “blue box” reached 4.6 billion euros during the same notification period. Most WTO agreements are the result of the 1986-1994 Uruguay Round negotiations, which were signed at the ministerial meeting in Marrakech in April 1994. There are about 60 agreements and decisions with a total length of 550 pages. Although agriculture has always been under GATT, there have been some significant differences in the rules for primary agricultural products as opposed to industrial products before the WTO. The 1947 GATT allowed countries to use export subsidies for primary agricultural products, while export subsidies for industrial products were prohibited. The only conditions were that agricultural export subsidies should not be used to cover more than a fair share of world merchandise exports (Article XVI:3 of GATT).