Apr 7, 1989

TNC MEET STARTS ON SOUR NOTE ABOUT LACK OF TRANSPARENCY.

GENEVA, APRIL 5, BY CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN – A crucial meeting, at high official level, of the Uruguay round Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) got off Wednesday morning to a shaky start, and an a sour note, with some key delegates complaining of lack of transparency in the consultations being conducted by GATT Director-General, Arthur Dunkel.

The ministerial mid-term review meeting at Montreal had been deadlocked in four negotiating areas: textiles, safeguards, agriculture and Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

The Montreal meeting put results achieved in eleven other areas, "on hold", and asked Dunkel, in his capacity as chairman of official level TNC meetings, to hold consultations in the four areas.

The TNC, it was further decided at Montreal, should meet at high official level in first week of April to review the entire package, both the results "an hold" and the outcome in the four areas.

Dunkel has been holding consultations on the four subjects since January, and has also visited some capitals. On March he put forward a paper of his own, providing what were describes as "working papers" in the four areas as a basis for negotiations among delegations.

Since March 31 he has been holding intense round of so-called "green room" consultations with participation open only to those invited by him.

The bases on which the invitations are issued have never been made clear.

The complaints about lack of transparency were voiced Wednesday by Colombia, Chile, Peru, Cuba and Tanzania.

Of these Colombia and Tanzania have normally been invited to the ordinary GATT "green room" consultations. Chile and Colombia are two of the five Latin American members of the Cairns Group who had blocked consensus at Montreal.

In addition, Colombia's Amb. Felipe Jaramillo is the chairman of one of the very important Uruguay round bodies, the group at negotiations on services. Tanzania’s Amb. Amir Jamal is the chairman at the GATT Contracting Parties.

The Tanzanian delegate who spoke at the TNC meeting, Elly Elikunda Elineema Mtnago, pointedly noted the fact that Jamal was the chairman of the CPS and the embarrassment caused when even he was not kept informed.

GATT participants noted after the TNC meeting that it was a commentary an the state of "transparency" in an organisation demanding "transparency" in trade policies of governments that even the chairman of the Contracting Parties had not been kept fully in the picture.

The participants noted that at Tuesday night’s meeting of the informal third world group, attended by more than 60 countries.

There were very strong views expressed about the lack of transparency in the consultations of Dunkel. These views reportedly were later conveyed to Dunkel by the chairman of the group, Brazil's Amb. Rubens Ricupero.

Earlier, in opening the meeting, Dunkel reportedly outlined the consultations and processes under way since Montreal, and the outlook in the four different areas.

A GATT spokesman, briefing the press later, said that Dunkel reporter that there were some differences still on textiles but he did not expect them to cause any problem.

On safeguards, Dunkel reported that discussions were under way to incorporate into the chairman's text for procedural actions the amendments put forward by various third world countries at Montreal.

In agriculture, Dunkel held out good prospects of solving the major problems relating to long-term objectives and reforms.

He also reported about intensive discussions under way on the short-term elements.

Dunkel was also hopeful of putting together "a package" on the agriculture issues.

On TRIPS, Dunkel felt a great deal of work remained to be done to find a common oasis for negotiations in the area.

In their interventions, apart from complaints about lack of transparency, the Latin American countries would also appear to have raised the problem of their indebtedness - an issue mentioned in the Punta del Este declaration, but on which solutions are yet to be agreed upon.

The Latin American countries made the point of indebtedness to underscore their interest in a successful Uruguay round, since trade was important to them to export goods, earn money and service their debt.

Pakistan, which spoke in a more substantive vein, underscored the need for progress in the area of textiles. The Pakistani delegate, Dr. A. H. Khan, said progress in this area was of paramount importance to his country and complained that level of progress in textiles was not as high as in other negotiating areas.

Dunkel was due to resume green room consultations on agriculture and later Wednesday afternoon on TRIPS. He has scheduled another TNC meeting Thursday morning to report on the consultations.

Other sources, participating in the consultations, said that they were far from agreeing on texts around which consensus could be obtained.

Some of the sources said though their delegations were supposedly involved in the green room consultations they were not aware of what was being done in some key areas, where Dunkel was basically consulting with the U.S., EEC and one or two others.

In textiles, they said, both the U.S. and EEC were resisting even the very loosely worried call for "freeze" on further restrictions. The Dunkel text puts this at no more than a "best endeavour" effort.

In the area of safeguards, they said, the EEC was resisting any references to a safeguard agreement being based on the most-favoured-nation principle. The EEC was also trying to dilute the references in the Dunkel text to bring under GATT safeguards discipline the proliferating grey area measures.

In agriculture the key participants were far from agreement on short-term measures, and the issues of special and differential treatment for third world countries was also unresolved.

In TRIPS, the basic differences relate to the issue of negotiating substantive norms and standards' in the Uruguay round. and the institutional framework (GATT vs. WIPO, etc.).

At the informal third world group meeting in GATT Tuesday night. surprisingly about a dozen countries spoke in support of the Brazilian amendments to the Dunkel text, with several countries putting forward other amendments to further strengthen it.

The strong views of the participants were reportedly conveyed to Dunkel Tuesday night by the Brazilian delegate, Amb. Rubens Ricupero who chairs the group.

The TNC has been scheduled till Thursday, with the possibility left open of a Friday meeting.

However, already there is talk of a Saturday meeting.

Swiss sources suggested Wednesday afternoon that even if the TNC meet wraps up on Saturday with some agreements, it would still leave many matters unresolved and for further consultations.

They also indicated that either the Uruguay round negotiations would resume on all fronts, in all 15 areas or not at all, pending furtner consultations.