9:05 AM Jul 14, 1993

TNC AGREES ON A WORK PROGRAMME

Geneva 14 July (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- The Uruguay Round Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), meeting at official level, agreed Wednesday to a programme of work for intense bilateral and plurilateral negotiations on market access in goods and services in July, as suggested by TNC Chairman and GATT Director-General, Peter Sutherland.

While going along with the programme, several Third World delegations remained sceptic after the meeting, viewing the talk of renewed multilateral negotiations as more cosmetic than real.

Some of them felt that without parallel work on the rules areas, agriculture and textiles and clothing, no progress in market access could be expected, and that substantive negotiations would begin only in September.

Under the programme, the TNC will meet on 28 July to review the progress and again at end of August to settle the work from September on "the remaining tracks of negotiations", as Sutherland put it at the TNC, namely, the changes in the text of the Draft Final Act put forward in December 1991 by Arthur Dunkel.

The "key message", Sutherland told a news conference afterwards, is that the Uruguay Round multilateral negotiating process has restarted as of Wednesday and "we intend to work over the next five months to conclude a global package of results".

The new GATT head stressed that to get an agreement by the December deadline, no one should now hold back. If everyone held back pending actions by others, it would be a recipe for stagnation.

"All participants must get their best offers on the table and must do so in the coming weeks and this applies to the Quad as amuch as to the others," he told the news conference. "If participants decide to play a waiting game on the basis that their trade partners must move forward, this round may be as much in danger as it was before the G7 meeting."

Sutherland said that at the end of July ifhe found that negotiators were marking time, "I intend to say so...and in the coming period it may be necessary to point fingers at the poor performers".

And since, the Quad, and the US and EC among them whose views Sutherland at the moment seems to be fully reflecting, are wanting the developing world to "contribute" and "perform", Sutherland, who accepted the EC advice on July 5 and refrained from "shaking the coconut trees" of the G7, perhaps will now be ready to point fingers at the developing world and push them.

But what effect this style will have on them remains to be seen.

While the TNC meeting and the press conference evidenced a new style, with several pressmen noticing a "cockiness" in the Sutherland style as compared to the caution of his predecessor, little of substance emerged on how the major difficulties and roadblocks would be tackled or the process under way.

After the TNC meeting, most delegates were extremely cautious, preferring to wait and see the "new style" being set in the GATT.

For good measure, Sutherland at his news conference also spoke of the G7 at Tokyo having lived up to the acid test of leadership in agreeing on the market access package and in having a personal engagement for the conclusion of the Round and its "consequences for the 'new world order' could not be under-estimated".

He told the news conference that the Quad and the G7 had given the signal he had expected them at Tokyo and that while the outcome on market access might not be comprehensive or satisfy everyone, the results were 'heartening' and others must respond and put forward their own "offers" in goods and services and negotiate.

On the problems of changes in the Draft Final Act text and the questions about rules, including the US demand for changes in the anti-dumping text, Sutherland is clearly pushing the US-EC line of first settling "market access" and getting others to make concessions before looking at changes in the DFA.

He said he did not envisage discussions or negotiations on the Draft Final Act text and changes in them or work in the legal drafting group to be taken up before September, repeating his view that any substantial changes in the text would endanger concluding the Round before the 15 December deadline and that it was for those seeking changes to establish a consensus.

Several delegates after the TNC meeting however said that they did not envisage any progress in market access unless the other issues -- whether of the agriculture text and disciplines, the textiles and clothing agreement, or the rules issues like those on dumping -- are also tackled in parallel if not together.

These delegates said that this had been clearly brought up in the various consultations in Geneva since Monday involving the Quad and the other countries and groups of them including discussions with the EC Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan.

As one of them put it, "in theory it sounds fine that we could put forward our 'offers' subject to 'nothing being final until everything is final' and on the basis of the DFA text, but it does not work out like that in practice. The majors will just grab what we offer now, and then demand more changes in the texts and we will end up as losers. That was why the attempt to focus on market access did not get anywhere in July 1992, and a similar tactic would probably meet the same fate."

India's Amb. Balkrishna Zutshi told newsmen that much would depend on the bilateral and plurilateral exchanges and negotiations in goods and services and how far the majors would be forthcoming towards the developing countries and their needs. While cutting 'peaks' in textiles might be of interest to some in the North, for the developing countries like India what was of interest were the quota restrictions that blocked their exports. It remained to be seen what would be done on these in bilateral negotiations.

Another delegate said that while it was possible that the majors might disclose their 'offers' or clarify the Tokyo package in bilaterals, the impression was that on many matters the Quad themselves were yet to agree and until then, they would not be very forthcoming and that the only areas of accord among them appeared to be those where they were "competitive" and not those where the developing countries had an interest.

At Brittan's meeting with the Latin American Group on Monday, for example, he was asked about the agriculture and textiles problems and there was no response. And when Brittan told the group that the Quad had now done their job and put revised offers and it was now for the developing countries to reciprocate, Brittan was told that the "Tokyo package" only related to areas in which they were competitive and not others and the developing world which had already put its offers on the table was looking for reciprocation.

He was specifically asked whether, instead of asking others to join the 'zero option' in pharmaceuticals and other sectors, the EC would be ready to discuss "zero option" in some areas like agriculture. Not unexpectedly there was no response.

The TNC heard Sutherland's exhortations and 'rules' he intended to follow, but most delegates seemed reserved as they came out of the meeting, with a few suggesting that the "new style", if it would persist, would quickly run into the reality that GATT consists of contracting parties who are sovereign governments fighting to preserve and advance their national interests and not easily swayed by exhortations or 'commandments'.

In his intervention at the TNC, the EC's Chief delegate, Tran Van-Thinh, said that while the "quad" had reached some accords at Tokyo, they were not negotiating at Geneva as a quad, but only for the individual countries, and he for the European Community's 12 members.

Tran also stressed the need for other countries to reciprocate with their own offers and revised offers, adding though that the Punta del Este declaration was still the guiding spirit and that developing countries in making their contributions would be expected to do so "consistent with their trade, finance and development needs" -- the language used in that declaration for the special and differential treatment for developing countries.

At the informal meetings this week of the Quad with other countries, at the Japanese delegation on Monday, India had commented on the absence of any reference at the Tokyo G7 communique to the Punta del Este declaration and the special and differential treatment envisaged there, adding that these days in the GATT the only countries getting the special and differential treatment appeared to be the industrialized countries over agriculture and textiles and clothing.

Tran's intervention in the TNC was seen as a response to this.

Zutshi in his intervention at the TNC welcomed this. Referring to Sutherland's new "rules", Zutshi then said that he would reserve his position on them, but that it appeared that Tran would in future be having some "in-house competition in giving commandments". If the Uruguay Round multilateral negotiations had "disappeared" from Geneva for a while, it was neither to the liking nor the desire of the developing countries who were now happy the negotiations had come back. To that extent it was a positive development.

Most delegations, in their comments outside, seemed to prefer to wait and not come to premature judgements on the Sutherland style, with some of them noting that there had been no prior consultations by Sutherland with any key group of countries in relation to the work programme and concentration on the market access package -- a view that has been pushed by the EC since January.

But few negotiators from key countries thought that these would get anywhere, without running into the same problems as before, a point that many of them had also conveyed in the various consultations this week with the Quad and Sir Leon Brittan.

If the Wednesday performance be any guide of future stance to the media, the new GATT leadership, while wanting to meet the press, collectively and bilaterally, and put across its view, seems likely to engage in even less transparency than in the past and function more in the Brussels EC-style of managing information.

While Sutherland speech inside the TNC was from a text, "notes" in the GATT language, and copies of this had been distributed to the delegates inside, this text was not made available to the press, as had been the practice so far in the past. The pressmen were told by the GATT press office that they should "ignore" the text and take only what Sutherland would tell the press.