Sep 17, 1986

GATT CPS AGREE ON PROCEDURES AT MEETING.

PUNTA DEL ESTE SEP. 15 (IFDA/CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN) -- The procedures to be adopted at this week's meeting of the GATT Contracting Parties at ministerial level is reported to have been agreed to Sunday at an informal meeting of heads of delegations, according to GATT sources.

At a meeting chaired by him, the Foreign Minister of Uruguay, Enrique Iglesias, who is the Chairman-designate of the meeting, is reported to have put forward the procedures he intended to follow for negotiating some of the major issues to enable the meeting here to agree upon and launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations (MTNS).

Iglesias is reported to have told the meeting that there were a number of important issues on which agreement or understandings would need to be reached: standstill on new protectionism, roll-back of protectionist measures already in place, the question of safeguards, agriculture, the linkages between monetary and financial issues and trade issues, the new themes proposed-services, counterfeit goods and intellectual property rights, and investment issues.

As outlined by him Sunday, while the plenary of the conference would hear statements from Ministers of Heads of Delegations of the GATT CPS and observers, a committee of the whole would be meeting separately to tackle the various issues, and agree on common language to be incorporated in the Ministerial Declaration to launch the new round.

The US, which at one stage apparently did not like the idea, but had wanted a more Ad Hoc arrangement of a few key Ministers meeting separately and agreeing on difficult issues, apparently withdrew its reservations to the procedures Iglesias wanted to follow.

Meanwhile, Iglesias was having a series of bilateral meetings with heads of delegations or Ministers to explore prospects for possible compromises.

However, some conference sources said that it was perhaps too early to start this process, and serious negotiations could be expected to begin only from Tuesday.

Apart from the conversations that Iglesias had been having there have also been other bilateral and other contacts.

The Cairnes Group of non subsidising agricultural exporters held a separate meeting sunday, and reiterated the group's position adopted in august at the meeting in Cairnes, Australia, that the new MTNS should address agricultural issues as a matter of high priority, and agree to negotiate on the issue of eliminating agricultural export subsidises in the new round.

The group welcomed the strong support to their position from the U.S., and hoped that the various discussions planned here, including with the EEC, would result in a satisfactory outcome to a problem that concerned a number of third world and industrial countries.

Meanwhile, a number of third world countries, from Asia and Africa pressed for priority for the negotiations on tropical products and creating a separate negotiating group to deal with these issues, and complete the negotiations say within a year of launching the MTNS, and implement the outcome ahead of other results in the MTNS.

The U.S. however is known to be opposed to this.

There were also some efforts among the third world countries, who are split here, to find some modus vivendi and accommodation among themselves. Some of the third world countries, who are in the group that had been involved in formulating the Swiss-Colombian draft for a Ministerial Declaration, are reported to have decided to hold their own discussions with the group of then, led by Brazil, who have taken a strong stand not only in opposition to the new themes, but are seek in more credible commitments and formulations in such matters as standstill and rollback of protection, safeguards and other traditional GATT issues.

Separately,m the EEC was holding talks with India, Brazil and others in the group of ten, to find some compromises over the new themes, and particularly services.

The EEC has broached the idea of launching the new round here as a single political undertaking, but with separate and distinct negotiations in trade in goods, and another outside GATT, through an intergovernmental conference here, to deal with negotiations on services.

Before the Punta del Este meeting, the U.S. has been encouraging the view that as a result of the talks between President Reagan and President Sarney of Brazil, the latter would abandon its objections to the services issue, and that India along would remain isolated, and hence would acquiesce.

In this perspective, the U.S. had spurned the EEC compromise efforts.

However, after last week's meeting at Washington D.C., the U.S. is reported to have advised some of its friends here, that the Brazilian stand had not changed but had rather hardened.

Brazil, India and some others in the group of ten have made clear that they would not agree to any forced consensus on this issue, nor would they acquiesce in it, but would object. Though at one stage there had been talk of gong ahead by majority voting, there now seems to be a clearer appreciation at least among some of the industrial countries that this would not be in their interest.

Brazil, India and de others have also made clear that if a new MTN were launched including new themes, in an Ad Hoc way as was done during the Tokyo round negotiations, they would not participate, and would voice their objections when at the end any effort to put such agreements or codes into GATT.

The EEC, as well as Iglesias, now appear to be trying to find some compromises, allowing for separate but parallel negotiations to meet the viewpoints of either side. A key question even here would be whether these would be within the GATT or outside it, even if it be held physically in the GATT building in Geneva, with the Secretariat providing some agreed conference and other facilities.

The issue of excluding South Africa from the new round has not so far formally come up here. The African countries got the Nam Summit at Harare to call upon the GATT CPS to exclude South Africa from the negotiations. But how and whether they would be bring it up here is not known. Some of the key African Delegations involved are yet to arrive, and are expected to do so only Monday morning, when their plans would perhaps become known.

The issue of Soviet participation also has not been formally brought up here, though the Soviet Union is known to have sent a communication on this to Iglesias.

Conference sources said that perhaps something about this would become known only after Monday's opening. Some sources said these could easily also come up in the committee negotiating the details, specially in relation to the provisions there about participation in the new round.