8:02 AM Mar 8, 1994

SCRUTINY OF QUAD'S SCHEDULES

Geneva 8 Mar (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- The market access schedules of the Quad (Canada, European Union, Japan and the US) and 15 others were taken up at the GATT Tuesday under multilateral scrutiny and verification process.

While the actual verification is normally a bilateral affair, in that those who have exchanged concessions make sure that the concessions exchanged (and filed with the GATT) are reflected in the schedules filed. But many delegations privately said before they went into the meeting that the US 'withdrawals' and revisions downwards of its tariff offers and reductions was an issue going beyond this narrow bilateral verification process, though there was this aspect insofar as it related to what the US had agreed to with Japan or the EC.

The schedules of all countries taken up on non-agricultural products were looked into, with several including Japan, EC, India and several others complaining about the US schedule and the withdrawal of some offers, and maintenance of some on a conditional basis even now. The complaints related to non-ferrous metals, trucks, chemicals, electronics, machinery and textiles.

In textiles, the US has still maintained that its tariff cuts would be dependent on or conditional upon effective market access by India and Pakistan for US goods and services, including textiles and textile products. It is not very clear how the final schedules filed after a week or more of delay from the 15 February deadline set by the TNC on when the negotiations were concluded on 15 December, could have conditional tariff schedules or what would happen between now and Marrakesh.

One participant said that all this appeared to be part of the negotiating pressure tactics, but would have to be resolved one way or another before 21 March (the deadline set by the secretariat as the last date for the reproduction of the schedules to be annexed to the Final Act to be signed by Ministers at Marrakesh.

Among the majors, the EU has not been specific and say what it would be doing in the light of the US schedules -- whether it would hit back and reduce or withdraw some of its own offers, or allow the US to get away or something else.

Unless the EU position becomes clear, many others would also be holding back and this would create a problem in terms of timing for the Marrakesh documents, one GATT source said.

On Monday, after an EC Council ministers meeting in Brussels, it was reported that the Foreign Ministers had agreed with the EC Commission on the need for a 'readjustment' of the EU's tariff cuts.

The statement by the Ministers stressed that the readjustment should be of 'limited character' and ensure that the EC's actions do not unravel the Uruguay Round package or the EC be held responsible for this. The Commission was asked to target products where the US supplied at least 90 percent of the EC market.

The EU is concerned that the US schedules did not reflect the EC's understanding of the 'done deal' on 14-15 December in the areas of non-ferrous metals and of lorries. The EU was dissatisfied over the level of cuts offered by the US on copper and trucks.

The statement from the foreign ministers also expressed concern over the US invoking of the 'Super 301' trade law provisions for unilateral trade sanctions and expressed the EU's "firm opposition" to the US unilateralism on international trade disputes.