GATT SPOKESMAN TALKS OF DUNKEL’S WIDENING CONSULTATIONS.

Feb 18, 1991

GATT SPOKESMAN TALKS OF DUNKEL’S WIDENING CONSULTATIONS.

GENEVA, FEBRUARY 15 (TWN) – The GATT spokesman, David Woods, said Friday that the Director-General Arthur Dunkel was intensifying and broadening his consultations on the Uruguay Round and hoped shortly to come up with an overall scenario for re-starting the Round.

The spokesman's statement came even as key participants in the Uruguay Round and Dunkel consultations said that there was a U.S.-EC deadlock on the kind of assurances that the EC would provide to enable the U.S. administration to get extension of the fast-track authority from Congress.

The sources said that at one stage Dunkel had prepared a kind of statement about the agricultural negotiations involving separate commitments in the three areas of domestic support, border protection and export subsidies.

The intention had been that the U.S. could cite it to get Congressional approval for extension of the fast track authority and that while the EC would not formally be committed, it would not deny it either.

However, they said this scenario too had run into trouble and the outlook was very clouded.

Dunkel has planned to meet with the informal Third World group next week, but Third World sources said the picture was less clear.