4:16 PM Apr 11, 1996

WILL SINGAPORE WTO MINISTERIAL BE DERAILED?

Geneva 11 Apr (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- Trade diplomats, at an informal heads of delegations meeting Monday, are due to focus on the Singapore Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO), including on new issues, even as some 'loud thinking' from the WTO head, Renato Ruggiero, for a WTO Summit meeting, has probably thrown a spanner into the works.

Whether the WTO Summit idea would be brought up or discussed at the Monday informal HOD meeting, the second of the informal preparatory meets under Ruggiero, is not very clear.

As decided at the first meeting in March, Monday's meeting is for the purposing of some decisions (to be formalised at the WTO General Council) on the format and nature of the Singapore meeting (ceremonial, part-negotiating and part-ceremonial or a purely business-like meeting of trade ministers) and perhaps take a first bite on the idea of including some of the 'new trade issues' being mooted by one or the other of the majors.

But after Ruggiero's sounding off on a WTO Summit meeting next year, diplomats are not at all clear whether they could 'get back' to their business of preparing for the Singapore meeting and/or whether they would need to tackle the Summit idea first or 'bury' it quickly.

In private conversations several of the key diplomats have not hidden their irritation at the way Ruggiero is pronouncing himself publicly without prior consultations. Ruggiero, they noted, has been promptly embracing and supporting, through press statements and comments, any idea that comes from the US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor or the EC Trade Commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan.

He has supported Kantor's call for 'corruption' to be on the WTO agenda, for discussions of sorts on labour-standards, and similarly Brittan's suggestions for a WTO investment agreement and competition policy.

But he has never consulted even privately others on what they feel about these ideas nor has he shown any sensitivity to the worries and concerns of developing nations.

Last week, in an interview with the Financial Times, Ruggiero came out with the suggestion for a summit meeting of the WTO in 1997. Washington and failing that London have been mentioned as the sites.

While his precise aims and thinking are not very clear, in some of his speeches since he took office, Ruggiero has been noting the high visibility and commitment that regional trade blocs get by the participation of the Heads of State/Government of their members, while the multilateral system does not get that attention and commitment, and the need thus to get Heads of State/Government involved in the WTO.

The FT report, presumably based on talks with Ruggiero, also has combined the idea of the Summit with the idea of 'observing' the 50th anniversary (next year) of the Havana Charter for the post-World War II multilateral trading system, and the 'provisional' General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

When the Uruguay Round was concluded, the majors (each for their own reason) was anxious not to make the new organization a successor to the old GATT, but took pains to ensure that the GATT 1947 was wound up (as it was in December 1995) and the WTO and its GATT 1994 was seen as a new organization.

But the aim of observing the 50th anniversary of the aborted Havana Charter and the GATT 1947 which is now dead, would appear to be part of the attempts of the WTO head and its officials, and many trade diplomats, to 'legitimise' themselves and lay claim to the heritage of original Bretton Woods architecture and the comprehensive Havana Charter.

A trade diplomat said that it would be ironic if the WTO Summit were now to take place for the 50th anniversary of the Havana Charter and the provisional GATT, and that in Washington DC, the place where the Havana Charter was killed before its birth.

The Havana Charter, and its aims of creating an International Trade Organization (ITO), as the third pillar of the Bretton Woods architecture, to supervise international trade and discipline the behaviour of governments and private corporations, was aborted when the US Senate refused to ratify it.

After a few attempts to persuade the US to ratify that Charter, this was given up, and trading nations remained happy with the 'provisional' GATT's more or less permanent existence, with trade diplomats priding themselves on their non-rhetorical, business-like activities and concrete agreements among 'gentlemen' who could be expected to carry out what they agree to do.

"If we have to observe the 50th anniversary of the Havana Charter, we should then meet in Havana, or in Geneva where the GATT was signed, or London and Ottawa where the preparatory committee for the Havana Conference met," another trade diplomat said.

Trade diplomats said it was their impression that while Ruggiero might have 'consulted' the US and/or the EU or might be acting at the suggestion of either of them on the WTO Summit, none of the other key countries involved in the Singapore preparatory process would appear to have been consulted.

Several of them said that until it is disposed off one way or another, the consideration of idea pushed by Ruggiero, whether a WTO summit takes place or not, would derail the first WTO ministerial at Singapore in December, since no Trade Minister would be willing (or would be allowed) to take a decision when his head of state or government would be assembling in a few more months.

None of them would turn up at a Summit for ceremonial purposes and would want to go back only with 'something' in their pockets to show back home.

But that something would have to be carefully prepared and negotiated by trade officials and trade ministers.

One diplomat said that while such a WTO Summit could provide some high visibility for the WTO, and be a photo-opportunity for the WTO head with Presidents and Prime Ministers, and for various WTO ambassadors with their own heads of government, none of the heads, however anxious in bilateral visits to push mercantalist interests of their countries for exports and contracts, would be able to 'negotiate' and 'decide' on intricate, highly-technical contractual commitments that would have consequences, positive or negative.

While two heads could meet and decide one or two things, and even then differences on what they agreed on soon surface, a clutch of them, with such differing interests meeting and deciding is mind-boggling.

The news report about Ruggiero's thinking on a WTO summit has also been combined with the view

However, one developing country ambassador noted that this was nothing unusual for Ruggiero. Ever since he took office, they noted, he has been doing much 'loud thinking' or pushing, without consulting others or weighing their interests, to any suggestion, even private, coming from the US or EU. said privately that while Ruggiero might have consulted the US and the EU, they had not been 'consulted'

The FT report related the Summit idea to the need for WTO Ministerial meetings (to be held once in two years), not coinciding with an American election year, as also need to get high visibility and commitment to the multilateral system by the participation of Heads of Governments.

An FT editorial has also spoken of need for WTO 'eminent persons' group or a separate study group financed by some of the governments, to prepare a new agenda and way ahead for the WTO.

Some trade diplomats said the idea of a Washington meeting, and involving Government heads in the WTO process, has been made by Fred Bergsten whose 'eminent persons' group also sought to push the APEC into firm commitments and a deadline for free trade and investment. But this effort to yoke APEC firmly behind the US, and get the APEC heads committed to adopt the recommendations of 'eminent persons', failed.

Now the same 'establishment' figures are promoting this for the WTO, and for periodic WTO summits.

After Marrakesh, when the WTO Preparatory Committee began working, there were suggestions that the first Ministerial should not be convened in 1996, but wait for the US presidential elections and the new administration taking over in 1997.

This was not accepted; many noted that one or the other major trading nations would be having elections at one time or the other and their national calendars could not be allowed to interfere with international calendars.