5:57 AM Sep 21, 1993

GATT TALKS OUTLOOK REMAIN CLOUDY

Geneva 21 Sep (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- The European Community's 'Grand Conseil', the jumbo meeting of foreign and agriculture ministers at Brussels may have put off a major split within the Community over agriculture and the Blair House accord, but have not removed the uncertainties and get the Uruguay Round talks moving forward in Geneva.

This appears to be the assessment of key delegations in Geneva.

Jorge Riaboi, Minister Councillor and GATT negotiator for Argentina, a principal agricultural exporting country and member of the Cairns group, said that his country was still sticking to the Draft Final Act and any watering down of its provisions (on agriculture) was against its interest.

He noted the statement of US President Bill Clinton that the US would not "renegotiate" the Blair House accord, and said whether the EC now called it discussion or clarification or anything else, as far as could be made out from the somewhat confusing reports of what the EC wanted, it would amount to a further watering down of the DFA.

The EC Council, after a marathon 12-hour meeting appears to have agreed on a carefully worded compromise asking the EC Commissioner for GATT talks, Sir Leon Brittan to take up with his US counterpart, Mickey Kantor, the concerns and points raised over the Blair House accord.

Press reports from out of Brussels spoke of Brittan being 'jubilant' and claiming that the EC Council decisions would leave "no excuses" for other countries to put forward their own "offers" in the Uruguay Round talks in Geneva and that others would be unable to argue in Geneva "We'll put nothing on the table until you sort out the mess you're in,'."

But as the G77 spokesman put it at the UNCTAD Trade Board on Monday, the actual position on market access has been that "...important offers presented by most developing countries have not been matched by satisfactory offers by developed countries on products of export interest to us".

Riaboi told the SUNS that Argentina's offers were already on the table and as the Chairman of the Market Access group, Germain Denis had commented "it was a good offer".

"We are ready to improve provided others will do the same," he said.

Commenting on the reports from Brussels about the points that the EC Council had wanted Brittan to discuss with Washington, Riaboi said that reopening these questions would weaken them further. While he would prefer to await further details, unless there was clarification by the proponents, the attempt appeared to be to weaken the various disciplines and rules.

But in Paris, the French claimed the outcome as a victory and entirely satisfactory to them.

Juppe was quoted as saying in an interview with Radio Luxembourg "we got exactly what we wanted" and that "It is not the Commissioners who have the power of decision, but the ministers; and the ministers have decided we would re-discuss several key points with the Americans".

Agriculture Minister, Jean Puech, was quoted as saying "we must modify some points of the pact...we are going to fill out other points and we will interpret yet other points..."

Juppe kept the threat of a French veto hanging, saying that if Brittan returned from Washington (where he is to hold talks with Kantor on 27 September), "France would reject this" and veto the US-EC pact. "If (Brittan) does not carry out the mandate, this will pose a major problem", Juppe who reportedly had a major clash at the meeting with Brittan (and, according to French reports, told the Council of Ministers that Brittan's behaviour unacceptable).

Puech insisted that Brittan would raise in Washington points raised by France: questions relating to currency fluctuations (provided in the accord, but which France wants to strengthen further), for cuts in US duty-free access to EC market of corn gluten feed (a cereal substitute as animal feed), for running down the EC agricultural stocks before the volume cuts take a bite, and for a right to boost exports (presumably with subsidy, negating the volume cuts) if the world market expands.