Apr 10, 1992

PINNING HOPES ON A DELORS-BUSH MEET?

GENEVA, APRIL 9 (CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN) – An "extended green room" or informal heads of delegations meeting of Uruguay Round participants is expected to be held on 13 April to take stock and agree on the "process", GATT participants reported Thursday.

At that meeting, the chair of the market access negotiating group or "track one" of the current process, Germain Denis of Canada, the chair of Group of Negotiations on Services or track two of the process, Felipe Jaramillo of Colombia and chair of the legal drafting group or track three, Madan Mathur, former deputy Director-General of the GATT, are expected to provide an assessment of the state of play in their groups.

A "green room" consultation at the GATT on Wednesday reportedly saw all except the U.S. and EC, expressing their frustration and disappointment at the deadlock in the negotiations to complete the ground and blaming the two ma ors and their stances on some of the key issues for state of affairs.

However, few were willing to publicly acknowledge that the Round had failed or even to put things on ice.

As one of the participants put it, quoting the EC delegate, Amb. Tran Van-Thinh "we are doomed to continue the Round".

(At a press conference Thursday, UNCED Secretary-General Maurice Strong said that "a collapse of the Uruguay Round, however you may think of its details, would be an immense setback to the whole concept of a world order. It will affect Rio just as a breakdown at Rio will affect the Uruguay Round. Both are resting the current limits oil political wilt at global level for cooperation").

Far too many negotiators, and far too many capitals, have staked their future and their domestic policies on the Uruguay Round and cannot face up to the consequences and responsibility of acknowledging publicly the failure, one of the participants said.

Even the two majors, including the EC, who are resisting changes in the Uruguay Round adverse to themselves, but are using the fact of the continued negotiations to put off needed domestic policy changes, cannot face the domestic consequences of acknowledging the stalemate and failure in the Round, one of the key negotiators said.

While the negotiators from other countries were complaining of the US and EC holding bilateral talks elsewhere, rather than at a multilateral forum, and worried about any U.S.-EC deals against their own interests, they were also looking to the forthcoming EC-U.S. summit meetings (between U.S. President George Bush and EC Commission President Jacques Delors and the Portuguese Prime Minister) for a signal that the negotiations could be concluded soon.

The Bush-Delors meeting would not be able to solve differences at that level, but would signal a breakthrough if the talks going on between the two at lower levels find a modus vivendi on agriculture and other issues dividing the U.S. and EC, some of the participants in Wednesday's green room suggested.

While some, like the Cairns group and Nordics were for some "dramatisation" and for a strong public message to come out of the TNC, placing the responsibility squarely on the U.S. and EC, the general consensus was that even though no one was negotiating now - whether on market access in goods or for initial commitments on services - it was unthinkable to abandon the Uruguay Round or acknowledge failure and go home, sources said.

GATT Director-General, Arthur Dunkel who chairs the official level meetings of the Trade Negotiations Committee, reportedly told the consultations that he had not so far seen any lowering of the political commitment in capitals to bring the Round to a successful conclusion, but that he wanted to hear the views of delegations on their perception of the present situation.

Almost all delegations who spoke, one of the participants said, expressed their frustration and disappointment at the state of play in tracks one and two, and even on tracks three.

"No one is negotiating and this way no progress can be made", one of the participants said.

Another said that while in the past the "quads" (Canada, Japan, EC and the U.S.) would sing the same tune at meetings and the other ICs would more or less do the same even if they were off-key. But at the last meeting of the market access group, the participant said, while the U.S. and EC spoke of their bilateral negotiations continuing, and Japan and Canada spoke in "Yes, but" language, everyone else of the developing and developed world made clear that as far as they were concerned no one was negotiating with them.

(The market access negotiations, whether in goods or for initial commitments in services, are basically bilaterals that at the end of the day, when the negotiations as a whole are concluded, will be multilateralised).

At the green room Wednesday, participants said, one or two of the key countries wanted a TNC meeting to take stock formally and send a clear message, but others were silent.

The two majors, these sources said, sought to give the impression that there was a genuine desire at political level to achieve a breakthrough in the forthcoming Delors-Bush meeting and that it might not be useful to hold any TNC meeting before that.

Other sources noted that even the U.S. and EC delegates played the Delors-Bush meeting in a low key, with the U.S. saying no more than that the meeting could provide a political breakthrough and the EC saying that while there could not be any negotiations at the summit, it could signal any breakthroughs achieved at bilateral talks.

The U.S. also reportedly denied that they were trying to reach compromises on agriculture, that the others would not want.

Other sources said that while recently European industry and business have been making noises at the stalemate over agriculture, there was very little margin of manoeuvre for the European governments - with several of them whether before or after elections proving to be very weak.

While the U.S. and EC also sought to blame the others for lack of progress, noting that many of the participants had not also filed their "offers" on agriculture, several of the Third World participants reportedly responded by pointing out that they could not be expected to file their offers without knowing what the two principals would do.

It was ultimately agreed that both for transparency and for wider consultations, an enlarged green room, or informal meeting of heads of delegations, could be held early next week to take stock of the situation.