The Northern Tariff file — the trading bloc's signalled duties of up to twenty-five per cent on Mediterranean motor vehicles, and the imperilment of the Cordoba assembly works — has been formally deferred by the Chamber of Commerce to the sitting following Monday's fuel vote. The Foreign Ministry's diplomatic note, dispatched last week, has not yet drawn a reply.

Those at the Commerce Hall describe the deferral as procedural rather than political: Monday's reserve vote is the sort of instrument that, in Don Cordoba's working method, is not to be taken alongside anything else. The assembly works, whose managers met Chamber officers on Tuesday, have been advised that the matter remains live and that the Chair's attention will turn to it directly after the reserve is settled.