Nov 21, 1990

MINI-PACKAGE COOKING BEHIND SMOKESCREEN OF GATT ACTIVITIES?

GENEVA, NOVEMBER 19 (BY CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN)— The Uruguay Round negotiations are entering into a week of hectic activity and intense "green room" consultations which many observers see as a kind of smoke-screen behind which the major players are trying to evolve a "mini-package" of results for the Brussels meeting.

This was the impression that emerged after Monday's green room consultations by GATT Director-General Arthur Dunkel to review the state of affairs in the negotiating process and the format for the Brussels Ministerial meeting.

Third World participants said that they expect that between now and the Brussels meeting, the U.S. and EEC would use the Dunkel "green room" consultation processes to push negotiations in areas other than agriculture and get as much work done as possible.

Meanwhile, they would continue high-level bilateral efforts on agriculture and see if something could be done in principle on the issue of reduction of agricultural support, export subsidies and market access, push this at Brussels to conclude a package leaving the details to be worked out at Geneva.

While the GATT secretariat and the major players want to evolve a detailed package of agreements to be ready for signature by February, the feeling among Third World participants, particularly those interested in agriculture, was that they could not allow the Round to be completed in this form at Brussels and that, after all the details are settled, another Ministerial meeting should be held to weigh the package and decide on its adoption.

The Dunkel "green room" consultations Monday were followed by an informal meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee at level of heads of delegations where he informed delegates of his programme.

According to this textiles and TRIPs will be subject of "green room" consultations on Tuesday, anti-dumping, subsidies and countervailing measures and dispute settlement on Wednesday, and market access, TRIMs, Services and Agriculture on Thursday.

The last is scheduled for Thursday night when Dunkel would attempt to sort out what are characterised "large number of technical questions", leaving the real substantive ones for Brussels.

At a news conference after the TNC meeting Dunkel sought to project an air of optimism over the Brussels meeting, in sharp contrast to his "gloom and doom talk" of a week ago.

The Ministerial meeting, Dunkel told newsmen, would take place as scheduled at Brussels on December 3 and it would take the political decisions to wind up the round at Brussels.

The meeting, he said, would have the report of the official level TNC which on 26 November would take note of, and forward to ministers, reports covering all elements which have been the subject of negotiations, and "a proposal" in terms of "a final protocol" containing the results of the Uruguay Round.

A key participant in the negotiations said that the real question would be whether on 26 November, when the TNC met, "we would be where we are or we would have advanced".

Another said that though Dunkel was talking of "upgrading" various texts from one category to another, a retrogression need not be ruled out either.

Some "eternal optimists" seek to think that Dunkel and the major players might still pull a rabbit out of a hat at Brussels to conclude the Round and declare it a success.

"But by definition pulling a rabbit out of a hat would be an 'illusion' and perhaps the real outcome and how far it has achieved the talk of liberalisation would take quite a while to be assessed and could be found to be negative", observers said.

Reviewing the state of the negotiations, Dunkel said that there were texts in some areas which had been accepted ad referendum and in others texts with square brackets indicating areas of disagreement which would be either sorted out in Geneva over the next few days or forwarded to Ministers.

There was a third category where so far there was no agreed basis for negotiations and agriculture fell into that category.

Though he would not identify to newsmen the various texts, earlier he had told the informal TNC that there were ad referendum texts on some MTN codes - import licensing, technical barriers to trade and customs valuation - and in some parts of the FOGs relating to confirmation of the trade policy review mechanism (TPRM), dispute settlement and some GATT articles.

In the second category, Dunkel had placed textiles, subsidies and countervailing measures while areas with no texts included anti-dumping, government procurement and agriculture.

Asked whether everything was "cut and dry" and there would be nothing left to negotiate in the new year, Dunkel said the purpose was to end negotiations in Brussels. But in every GATT round there had always been the need, after the agreements were concluded for some work to be done.

In the case of tariffs, for example, after exchange of concessions, time would be needed for participants to prepare and file their tariff schedules.

Dunkel was then reminded that in earlier GATT rounds there had always unfinished areas of negotiations, which were rolled over into a new work programme and this, happened often on areas of interest and concern to the Third World. He was asked whether he could rule this out or whether a "mini-package" was being cooked and would be put through, rolling over all other things to a new work programme.

"We still have some days to go and let us see...", Dunkel said. "But I am on the side of those who think we will have a substantial package which is the only way to take care of the very diverse interests that the round is meant to take care of".

Asked whether he was ruling out substantive negotiations after 7 December, Dunkel replied "Yes, policy decisions are going to be taken in Brussels".

Though thus Dunkel sought to discourage talk of the prolongation of the Round, some of his answers and non-answers left little doubt among newsmen that there would be negotiations at Geneva after Brussels to fill in details on basis of any political decisions that would be reached.

Dunkel was also asked about the impression he was giving of the negotiations being in a "dynamic process" and whether there was a possibility that the major players would agree on something among themselves which would be thrust on others.

"There are no major and minor players", Dunkel said. "This is a multilateral trade negotiations and the views you are expressing is a preoccupation which is very much present and one of the preoccupations of the chair is to get everyone on board".

Dunkel was also asked about his statements about a textile draft and whether it would be credible if under the agreement after ten years, in 2002, only 45 percent of the existing MFA restrictions would be removed and integrated, leaving another 55 percent to be phased later.

"My job", Dunkel said, "is to make people negotiate. If they reach a bad agreement, it is not my job to tell them it is a had agreement even though taking a global view others may so view it".