Mar 18, 1998

FINANCE: EU PARLIAMENT SETS CONDITIONS FOR MAI

 

Geneva, 16 Mar (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- The European Parliament at its meeting in Strasbourg last week, has adopted a resolution against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) being negotiated at the OECD as it stands. 

By a vote of 437 against 8, the resolution adopted by the EP, concedes that transparent rules for investment are needed, but has set out some 37 conditions for such an agreement. Meanwhile, the negotiations among the OECD members, originally intended to be completed and readied for signature at the April Ministerial meeting now faces an uncertain future. 

The negotiations which had been conducted in virtual secrecy was suddenly hit towards end of last year when a number of non-governmental groups of the North and South joined hands to agitate against it.  

The high level meeting of OECD countries at Paris in February, took place after this public 'debate', with several key governments entering new reservations and conditions, and the US itself backing off from the original MAI, by keeping commitments to the Federal level (thus not binding its states) The February talks ended in a deadlock, with many outstanding issue, and some sharply differing views among major OECD countries. 

The negotiations are expected to be resumed in May with two or three sessions before the end of the year and, possibly with a change in the chair of the negotiating group -- with some reports that the Dutch official leading the talks is being reassigned, and an American might take over.  

The OECD Ministerial meeting in April is expected to adopt a declaration or statement to keep the negotiations alive, and give the impression it is on course.  

The Dutch finance official Frans Engering, who has been chairing the negotiating group, said in February after the abortive talks that the Ministerial meeting could even conclude that the MAI is not viable. He said that there were still a number of "complicated and politically sensitive issues still on the table," but cited four main areas of debate: a possible dispute settlement system; labour and environment issues, exceptions to the liberalisation process and subsidies and selective government procurement.  

In testimony before a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives earlier this month, Alan Larson, US Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, said that it would not be possible to conclude the agreement at the April OECD meet. He also said that Washington would be unable to approve the agreement as it now has evolved and that "dramatic improvements" would be needed. 

OECD sources say, the April Ministerial meeting may issue a declaration or statement giving support to continued negotiations to resolve outstanding issues.  

The debate and vote in the European Parliament at Strassbourg last week was on a report by the German Green member Wolfgang Kreissl-Doerfler.  

In the resolution, the European Parliament has expressed serious doubts on several points of the draft MAI and calls for better democratic control over these negotiations.  

Among the 37 recommendations to the EU Commission, the resolution: 

The Parliament resolution, and recommendations, supports the EU Commission's attempts to get jurisdiction over this question as a matter falling with EU competence.  

This would automatically ensure a role for the EU Parliament which, it currently would lack, if the negotiations are among the OECD members.  

All "questions relating to foreign direct investment to be transferred in a near future to the field of EU competence", the resolution recommends. The MAI, the recommendation says, should comprise clear provisions banning social or environmental dumping. 

The MEPs say the definition of investment in the MAI should be clarified especially in the field of patents relating to vegetable, animal and human genes;  

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), the resolution recommends should be excluded from the agreement as it is covered by other international agreements.  

No MAI should be concluded without a specific clause "relating to the regional economic integration organisations" (REIO), authorizing the pursuit of European integration.  

The countries belonging to regional groups are not to be compelled to extend to third countries the benefits of the preferential treatment reserved to members.  

The standstill and roll-back clauses of the MAI should be clarified in order to verify whether they are an obstacle to the greater harmonisation of legislation within the EU Member States.  

The MAI dispute settlement measures should also balance the rights of enterprises and States;  

Measures aimed at preserving and promoting cultural and linguistic diversity should be excluded from the agreement.

The European Court of Justice should also examine the agreement under Article 228 of the Rome Treaty. 

The European Parliament also deplored the fact that questions linked to the tax regime of transnational corporations are not treated in the OECD's draft MAI.  

The Parliament resolution welcomed the fact that the MAI will restrict the "race for subsidies".  

According to NGOs tracking the MAI issue, the debate in the European Parliament brought out that some political groups -- mainly Socialists and the United Left -- are against the MAI in principle and call at least for negotiations to be transferred to a body in which the developing countries may participate (WTO, UNCTAD)  

For the Greens, the OECD's MAI project cannot be simply corrected, it must be reviewed from top to bottom.  

Other Parliamentary groups support, in principle, a multilateral agreement on investment but call for revision of some provisions, and clarification of others. Thus, several MEPs from the conservative and liberal groups defended the agreement stressing that it would replace some 1,800 bilateral agreements, provide a regulatory framework for investment, and will have an economic impact that is as important as the agreements on GATT customs tariffs.

According to NGOs tracking the issue, the debate mainly focused on three major substantive issues:

The first was whether the agreement granted too much power to multinationals and does it threaten the right of States to legislate?  

Dorfler, Green MEP and rapporteur, believed the MAI compromised the right of States to set new environmental standards, for example, for implementing the commitments taken in Kyoto on climate change and in Montreal on the ozone layer. He feared that the roll-back clauses (providing for the adjustment of national legislation to the agreement) and the stand-still clauses will remove all meaning from the sovereignty of States. He also challenged the arbitration structure foreseen by MAI, which would give enterprises the possibility of attacking a State, but not the contrary.  

Mrs McKienna, speaking for the EP Committee on Fisheries, expressed alarm about the effects that the agreement would have on the ability of States to reduce their catch rates in order to preserve halieutic reserves, all the more as the measures adopted at the OECD will be valid for twenty years. Several French MEPs spoke in defence of the cultural exception, but others feared the large exceptions would lead to protectionism.  

A second substantive issue was the lack of democratic control over the result and negotiation of the agreement.  

The MEPS call for the European Parliament to be consulted for assent, a view that the EC Vice-President and Trade Commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan seemed to favour.  

An EC Parliament jurisdiction would automatically result in the EC Commission's jurisdiction over the members, a point that Brittan has been pushing for. 

Italian Communist Luciana Castellina (Chair of the Committee on External Economic Relations) and French Communist Aline Pailler drew a parallel between the lack of transparency in the negotiation of MAI and the transatlantic market project launched on last week by the EC the Commission.  

"Beyond the questions of culture, environment and social rights, what appears is that the people no longer want a treaty negotiated for them in the dark", said Mrs Pailler.  

A third substantive issue that agitated MEPs was whether the agreement endangered the continuation of Community integration? For several MEPs, the MAI did threaten economic, environmental and social integration and prevented the EU from granting aid to certain specific sectors.  

In addition, Elly Plooij-van Gorselm an MEP from Netherlands said, is not an agreement under Community competence (Article 113 of the Treaty) and one must ensure that competition distortion between Member States is prevented should some Member States sign the agreement and others not.  

The Court of Justice must therefore be consulted, said MEPs. But the Commission vice president, Sir Leon Brittan, opposed this.