NIGHT CONSULTATIONS PRODUCE PROBLEMS, RATHER THAN SOLUTIONS.

Dec 8, 1988

NIGHT CONSULTATIONS PRODUCE PROBLEMS, RATHER THAN SOLUTIONS.

MONTREAL, DECEMBER 6 (IFDA/CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN) - Informal consultations in groups and subgroups on three clusters of issues continued here Monday night and early Tuesday morning in efforts to find agreements at the Montreal mid-term review meeting.

But instead of solutions, "we might be ending up with more problems", one GATT negotiator commented Tuesday morning.

With so many people having taken up so many hard positions publicly, and with so many Ministers even from the north unaware of the backgrounds to the issues or the technical preparations over years, it is difficult to see agreements being reached here on several of these issues, the negotiator commented.

And with one tide or the other creating its "linkages", all issues are getting linked up and in the end the best we could do would be to give general political guidance and direction to our negotiators to work with diligence on these documents, with all their square brackets, and find solutions, the negotiator said.

In the agriculture group, chaired by the chairman of the Trade Negotiations Committee (5, :), Ricardo Zerbino, there was little movement in the stands of the EEC and the United States, about "reduction" or "elimination" of government support for agriculture, and about "short-term" versus "long-term" measures and commitments.

Privately in the corridors the "Cairns group" was complaining about need unrealistic and rigid stand of them to find some compromises and short-term accords and commitments to freeze and reduce in a quantifiable and not vague way the subsidies on exports and domestic support impeding market access.

In services, the group chaired by Sweden’s Anita Gradin dispersed in the early hours of this morning, with Gradin planning to produce a new paper of her own, and others cautioning against any attempt to "simplify" the report Of the "GNS" and its options which would complicate rather than ease the way for-future negotiations.

The United States continued to harp on simplistic directions about "national treatment", "right of establishment", "transparency" and "dispute settlement" being the principles on which the negotiators should work.

This was rejected by several of the protagonists from the third world who insisted on the Punta del Este mandate and its imperatives of "development" and "respect for national policy objectives and laws and regulations", and a framework for "trade" in services which implied only services that cross the border and not those to be produced inside a country.

The EEC for its part reportedly made clear that there could be no progress in services "without having developing countries on board" -- which meant no "solutions" could be steamrollered.

The United States and Australia reportedly were also planning to produce informal texts of their own, and Gradin is to present informally her text this afternoon.

"We will then be back to square one as at Geneva, undoing the efforts of the 'GNS' over the last week of november, where we at least cleaned up and simplified the text for ministers and future negotiations," one third world diplomat commented.

In the group dealing with a number of traditional GATT items about market access and systemic issues, a number of sub-groups have been set up to work on possible drafts.

But it was becoming clear that if issues important to third world countries like textiles and clothing or safeguards could only have procedural decisions to continue negotiations, all other issues might end up with procedural resolutions in a similar way.

The demand of several third world countries that safeguards negotiations should be based firmly on non-discrimination, was reportedly sought to be countered by some of the industrialised nations like the United States and the EEC that these ideas had been put on the table at Geneva at the last moment and could not be handled here.

But when third world countries like India, supported by Pakistan, China, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and others reportedly pointed out that this issue, including the non-discrimination issue, had been pending in GATT since 1973 and the "Tokyo round", it appeared to have surprised the chairman, Canadian Trade Minister John Crossbie and some of the other industrialised country Ministers present.

But with several third world countries having only one minister, and with several groups meeting simultaneously, they had to be represented by their officials, who had technical knowledge, and efforts of the secretariat and of major industrial nations like the united states to keep out such officials out of the talks, and take advantage of ignorance of third world Ministers on technicalities, has now become counter-productive.

On textiles, Pakistan and a number of other third world countries made clear that if there was no movement, and clear political direction to wind up the "MFA" gradually and negotiate an agreed date for it, then they would have little interest in any multilateral trade negotiations either.

The group on trade-related intellectual property rights, chaired by Turkey's Yusuf Ozal was holding its first meeting Tuesday morning. But informal consultations by Ozal Monday night reportedly brought out that there was little give on any side, and that third world countries remained united in opposing using "Uruguay round" and GATT negotiations to create new or enhanced and substantial norms and standards, and that the issue could only be dealt with in the competent U.N. specialised agency, the world intellectual property organisation, and not in GATT.