Nov 29, 1985
COMPROMISE ELEMENTS SAID TO BE EMERGING.
GENEVA, NOVEMBER 27 (IFDA/CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN)— Elements of a possible compromise for a consensus was reported to be emerging Wednesday night, as the annual session of the GATT Contracting Parties heard general statements from various delegations.-The session is continuing Thursday, and could end with a decision if the elements prove acceptable to all, participants said.- The chairman of the Contracting Parties, Felipe Jaramillo of Colombia, and the director-general Arthur Dunkel were engaged in consultations with individual delegations on the possible outcome of the session, and depending on this formal proposals could be tabled by Jaramillo Thursday, GATT sources said.- These elements reportedly would involve a decision to set up a Preparatory Committee on a new round, the continuance of the GATT work programme including on services, the potential participants in a Preparatory Committee and its time-frame.- GATT sources said that it now appeared less likely than before that there would be a vote at the session, or that any decision would be reached on the fundamental question of appropriateness and desirability of multilateral action on services or its inclusion in a new round.- The only issue likely to be decided would be on the continuance of the work of the past 12 months on services in GATT, namely the exchange of information among interested Contracting Parties in a format organised by the chairman of the Contracting Parties or the "Jaramillo track".- Other GATT participants said that the final compromise would be such as to postpone any confrontation or fight over services issue to the next year, and fudge the outcome sufficiently to enable those who have staked too much prestige to interpret it as they wished to their domestic audiences.- Community sources said Wednesday night that the compromise would involve the setting up of a Preparatory Committee without pre-conditions, and for the continuance of the work on services under the chairmanship of Jaramillo and for the group to report on this to the next regular session of the Contracting Parties.- The relationship between the two would not however be spelt out.- The Community sources noted that the decision of the Third World countries not to insist on their conditions of standstill and rollback was a major concession that had avoided a confrontation, and this should be appreciated by all.- The Community itself, which had expressed reservations on standstill and rollback in 1982 at the time of the Ministerial declaration, had been ready to lift its reservations and make a commitment if others too would do the same, but others were not ready.- Other GATT participants later said that it was the U.S. side that was unwilling to do it, in view of the situation in the Congress.- U.S. sources told newsmen that the U.S. was already committed to standstill and rollback in 1982, and "by and large" had been observing it as when it "rolled-back" the voluntary export restraints on import of Japanese cars, and when the president refused protection to footwear and thus observed standstill.- However, both third world and other industrial countries underlined that these two examples were far overshadowed by the plethora of protectionist barriers that had been put up under the present U.S. administration, behind all its talk of free trade and free market principles.- The Community also said that the Preparatory Committee would have to deal with the issue of standstill, rollback, safeguards, and the issue of special treatment for the Third World.- While the U.S. side was claiming that the Preparatory Committee would be free to discuss any issue, and thus services, others were underlining their own stand that before any decision could be taken to launch a negotiations in GATT on services, the on-going exercise in the Jaramillo track would have to be completed, and the Contracting Parties as such would have to decide that multilateral action on services was appropriate and desirable.- Some of the participants in the efforts at compromise said that much would depend on how the protagonists move in the stages ahead, and whether the pressure tactics on services will be pushed to a point where the Preparatory Committee could finally end up with no report or recommendations as happened in the senior officials group when the services issue was sought to be pushed there.-