Case 200 - From Blair House to the Farm House: Negotiating Agriculture in the European Union

Grand, Richard

After several years of stalemate, the Uruguay Round of the multilateral talks involving the parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade were sidelined, and talks became bilaterally focused between the United States and the European Union. This case study uses the interim bilateral agreement that became known as the Blair House Accord to illustrate the complexities of negotiating farm trade within the E.U. Negotiators, in resolving agricultural trade disputes, had to find compromises to satisfy various constituencies, mediate the different scales in the global economy, and form alliances within states and across the European Community.