Article 3
1. ‘Global credit arrangement’ shall mean any understanding or statement, in whatever form, whereby the intention to guarantee supplier or financial credits or to open financial credits, up to a specified or ascertainable ceiling, and in respect of a connected series of transactions, is made known to a third country or to exporters or to financial institutions. The consultation procedure shall be applicable to these global arrangements even where the nature of the transactions has not been specified and no formal commitment has been entered into, without prejudice to the right to decide on each particular contract. 2. If, in the course of a consultation on the granting of a global arrangement — whether public or private in nature — a Member State or the Commission should request oral consultation and if in the course of this oral consultation seven Member States should request that all or some of the individual contracts to be charged to this global arrangement constitute the subject of prior consultations, consultation shall be applicable to such contracts. 3. Any Member State which has granted a global arrangement shall, at a date subsequent thereto, and every six months thereafter, give notification of the use made of that arrangement.