Industrial design rights in the European Union of industrial design rights is required by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS, Arts. 25 & 26), to which the European Union is a party. The Regulation on Community designs provides for the recognition of the priority date of an application for design right registration in a country which is either a member of the World Trade Organization or a party to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. On 1 January 2008, the European Union became a party to the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs
World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 2005 Heads of Government Meeting in Malta, on 25–27 November 2005, the group issued its Valletta Statement on Multilateral Trade calling on "all developed countries to demonstrate the political courage and will to give more than they receive." The Commonwealth has also acknowledged that "Agriculture is the most distorted sector of world trade" and has put renewed pressure on the European Union to commit to a time-table to reduce agricultural subsidies. The main concern of Africa in the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization was to have the right of entry to the Northern markets for tropical products,