EU, US sign WTO deal on European enlargement

GENEVA, Mar 22 (Reuters) The United States and the European Union signed a tariff and quota deal today compensating US exporters for higher duties amongst the EU's 10 newest members.

When the 10, including Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, joined the EU on May 1, 2004, they had to bring their tariffs into line with those elsewhere in the previously 15-state bloc.

This left US exporters facing higher tariffs on some goods they had been exporting to the 10.

Goods covered by the deal, which goes into effect by July 1, 2006, included pork, poultry, corn gluten meal, chemicals, aluminium tube and fish.

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