78. In considering the organizations in the second category, the Chairman said that EFTA, OAS and SIECA were regional organizations and were among those that the General Council was in the process of considering in the light of their requests for observer status at its meetings. The Council for TRIPS might therefore wish to postpone action on their requests until such time as the General Council had come to a conclusion. The OIV, however, was a multilateral intergovernmental organization and was not requesting observer status in the General Council: it had limited its requests for observer status to three WTO bodies in whose work it considered it had particular interest, namely the TRIPS Council and the SPS and TBT Committees. Therefore, it might be possible for the TRIPS Council to act on this request without waiting for the General Council, having regard to the criteria provided for in the procedures concerning observer status.
