Unless some nation changes its position by Friday, the consensus decision Wednesday means that the deal negotiated last week by the EU's trade chief, Sir Leon Brittan, and U.S. envoy Stuart Eizenstat will take effect automatically.
Spain, France and Italy planned a last-minute push to link the approval to a threat of swift retaliation if the United States did not hold up its end of the bargain. But in the end they backed off, EU officials said.
Instead, the 15 nations' delegates merely agreed on a nonbinding statement that if no definitive agreement is reached with Washington in the next year, they will again call on the EU to legally challenge the Helms-Burton law and D'Amato-Kennedy bill.
EU officials promised Eizenstat to discourage European investments in Cuba until European nations and Washington reached agreement on a new international regulations that would bar private companies from doing business with government-seized properties.
Washington in return promised to eventually seek changes in Helms-Burton, which sought to punish foreign firms trafficking with U.S. properties seized in Cuba but also sparked an international brouhaha over the law's extraterritorial reach.
Washington also is expected to seek modifications of the D'Amato-Kennedy bill, which would restrict foreign oil investments in Iran and Libya. Those two countries provide much of Europe's crude.
As a result of the Brittan-Eizenstat agreement, the EU last week suspended its challenge to Helms-Burton before the World Trade Organization.
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