"Agricultural Brinkmanship: The Community and the Gatt Uruguay Round"

[From the Introduction]. When the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade's (GATT) Uruguay Round trade negotiations were indefinitely suspended on December 7, 1990, most analysts agreed that the proximate cause of the collapse was the European Community's intransigence in the agricultural negotiations. The EC's uncompromising stance in the area of farm trade puzzled many observers, especially those inclined to see things in terms of a straightforward rational costbenefit analysis. For these critics, explanation of such behavior must rest with national governments who lacked the political will to confront powerful domestic farm lobbies. The resulting paralysis led to the irrational result that farming, a sector which provides only 3% of Community GNP, had been preserved by sacrificing potential agreements in other sectors, including trade in services, which contribute more than 70% of Community GNP