Word: european
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...specter of labor conditions being used as a reason to block imports to the U.S. from developing countries prompted their leaders to block any progress. In the end, Washington was unable to win even the relatively nebulous commitment - agreed upon by its most important rival trading bloc, the European Union - to form a WTO working group on the issue of labor rights. Thus the pitfalls of an organization whose decision-making process demands absolute consensus...
...consensus was imminent before the developing countries recoiled from Clinton's comment. Deep divisions between Europe and the U.S. over issues such as agriculture subsidies gave the developing countries plenty of room to maneuver. In the end, the industrialized nations found shackled by domestic political concerns. European governments were bound by their electorates' concerns over everything from protecting the livelihood of farmers to genetically modified food as reason to fight tooth and nail against any moves to open up their produce markets. President Clinton tried at the last minute to get the G7 heads of state to come to Seattle...
What's more, Cuba is no Shanghai. It is not an easy place to do business. Canadian and European executives warn that the island is an emerging market the way molasses is a river: the socialist bureaucracy is maddening; the military, headed by Castro's brother Raul, plays an inordinate role in business affairs; and some 85% of the wages that foreign companies pay impoverished Cuban workers (who make an average $15 a month) ends up in government coffers. Cuba's post-Soviet economy has made a comeback since it crashed in 1993, but the country has garnered less than...
...developing countries say, in part, thank goodness for the rules, because they can't afford the environmental standards of the U.S. or the wage levels of U.S. and European workers. On the other hand, the developing countries say that U.S. practices are unfair--particularly those regarding intellectual property rights (which indeed deprive the poorest countries of drugs that are available only at monopoly prices protected by patents), and the use of trade barriers against products produced in low-wage countries (such as anti-dumping rules, set not by the WTO, but by the U.S. itself...
...Which European former head of state this week found himself at the center of a graft scandal...