7:44 AM Nov 8, 1993

QUAD MUTUAL FINGER-POINTING DOESN'T HELP - SUTHERLAND

Geneva 8 Nov (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- Instead of Quad countries engaging in a 'finger-pointing exercise' against each other, they and particularly the US and EC, must move forward rapidly on negotiations on market access and address in a multilateral process outstanding significant issues that remain to be resolved, for the Uruguay Round to be concluded by 15 Dec, GATT Director-General Peter Sutherland said Monday.

Sutherland was answering questions at a joint press conference with a visiting Commonwealth mission that came to Geneva, and from here proceed to other major capitals, to press for conclusion of the Uruguay Round by the 15 December deadline.

The visit to Geneva of the Commonwealth delegation, and the Sutherland's remarks came even as reports from Brussels said that the EC Trade Commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan, has reportedly said that EC members may have to "lower their sights" to get a conclusion of the Uruguay Round.

Brittan's views about the state of play in the Round was in a report circulated to a crucial two-day meeting of EC Foreign Ministers starting Monday -- where the French and some of their allies are planning to put a tighter rope on Brittan and his style of negotiations with the US.

A five-member ministerial mission had been named at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (Chogam) at Limassol in October. But only two of them turned up for the meeting with Sutherland.

Canada, named at Limassol, has dropped out, following a change of government with the new Government that took office Thursday yet to redefine its position and attitude.

Absent at Geneva were also the Malaysian and Ghanaian ministers. Malaysian Minister Dato Seri Rafidah Aziz though was expected to join the group on its next leg -- visit to Brussels.

Other capitals the mission is visiting are Paris, Bonn, Washington, Tokyo and then London.

Barbados Foreign Affairs Minister, Brandford Taitti and Mauritius Trade and Shipping Minister, Anil K. Bachoo -- the two-man ministerial team that came to Geneva -- told the press conference that seven years was a long-enough period for the negotiations and they want to impress on the various major entities the need for concluding the Round.

Bachoo and Taitti both argued that when developing countries were willing to make the necessary sacrifices, they could not understand the major trading partners being unwilling.

Bachoo was asked about the recent Francophone summit, where Mauritius was a participant, which had made some contra noises on the Uruguay Round, and how the former colonies of the two European metropolitan powers reconciled these stands.

At the Francophone summit, the participants unanimously endorsed French President Francois Mitterand's stand against US cultural imperialism and domination and need for a cultural exception to the Uruguay Round over audio-visual services.

The Mauritius minister said his own country had no problem on this nor any contradiction between the two statements. But he did not elaborate on the differences over the Uruguay Round that came out of the Francophone and Chogam meetings.

Sutherland, who was also at the press conference, said the outstanding problems could not be resolved and the Round completed so long as the Quad countries were merely engaging in finger-pointing exercises. The development of a comprehensive market access package was vitally important and so was the need for resolution, through a multilateral process, of several significantly outstanding issues that remain on the table.

A meeting of the TNC is set for Wednesday when it is due to agree on a process for considering all the outstanding issues for changes in the Draft Final Act texts on the table -- the drafts tabled by Sutherland's predecessor Arthur Dunkel in December 1991.

In his report to the EC Ministers, Brittan blamed the negotiating stalemate on US "political indecision" and reticence on the part of Japan. He also termed as 'meaningless' the US public insistence that the Blair House accord can't be renegotiated. The EC, he stressed, was only seeking "interpretations, clarifications and additions", and not a renegotiation.

Brittan also told the EC ministers in the report that unless the US and Japan improved their tariff-cutting offers, the EC might withdraw its own officers and cuts and this would mean a "less ambitious" market access package than they had aimed at. The EC, Brittan reportedly said, must be ready to "refix its goals" and concentrate on what was "indispensable".

Meanwhile, French sources in Brussels disclosed that the Leon Brittan-Mickey Kantor talks, set for 15 November in Washington has been put off by atleast a week, at the US request.