Oct 17, 1985

SENIOR OFFICIALS GROUP ON NEW MTNS.

GENEVA, OCTOBER 16 (IFDA/CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN)— A "senior officials' group" in GATT is due to take up Wednesday discussion of various issues that would be the subject matter of a proposed new round of multilateral trade negotiations.-

The group, which began a three-day meeting Monday, is expected to meet again on October 22 to continue its work.-

The decision to set up such a group, and its mandate were decided at a special session of the GATT Contracting Parties on October 2.-

Though termed "senior officials' group", most of the "senior officials" were the same Geneva representatives of various countries accredited to the general agreement.-

There were about a score of officials from capitals, most of them from European countries. Even of these, only a couple were leaders of their delegations, the rest were advisors to their Geneva delegates.-

The group is chaired by Felipe Jaramillo of Colombia, who is the chairman of the GATT Contracting Parties.-

The group had been asked to examine the "subject matter and modalities" of a proposed new round of MTNs, and do this "in the light of the GATT work programme and priorities for the 1980's as contained in the Ministerial declaration of 1982 and the continuing consideration of changes in the trading environment so as to ensure that the GATT is responsive to these changes".-

According to participants, a four-hour meeting on the first day was spent in discussing the procedure for the group.-

As the Brazilian delegate, Paulo Nogueira Batista apparently put it at the meeting, "a lot of time has been wasted because the normal GATT practice of prior informal consultations were not followed".-

After discussions on whether the GATT work programme and its text should be taken as a basis for the discussions or a secretariat precise which was considered by several delegates as inadequate due to its ignoring or incorrectly reflecting their views and submissions.-

The officials spent Tuesday discussing the "objectives" of a new round, with several Third World delegates underlining that the objectives could only be the objectives of the general agreement and of the 1982 Ministerial declaration.-

Only on the last day of the current meetings "we are going to take up the subject matter, and go according to the subjects listed in the Ministerial declaration and in that order", a participant said Tuesday evening.-

"There is nothing that we have so far done that could not have been done through the normal mechanisms of the GATT, like the GATT Council. We have only spent some extra money, and helped to dramatise a process, and with the process being mistaken for the substances", another Third World diplomat remarked.-

The three-day session is being held in the ILO building, rather than in the normal GATT facilities in the GATT building, and the extra costs would probably be of the same order as for the three-day special session which cost GATT of 50.000 Swiss franks.-

Participants said they did not expect the controversial "services" question to come up at this or even the next meeting of the group.-

That issue will probably come up only at the next regular session of the GATT Contracting Parties set for the last week of November, they added.-