Jun 15, 1985

SOME CONVERGENCE ON PROCEDURES.

GENEVA, JUNE 12 (IFDA/CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN) -- A convergence of ideas on procedures for future actions in GATT may have emerged from the informal meeting at Stockholm (June 8-10), of a small group of Ministers of industrial and Third World countries, but there are still considerable differences of substance, according to third world sources here.

The Stockholm meeting did not result in any agreed conclusions on communique, but the Swedish chairman of the meeting later provided, on his own responsibility, a summary of the conclusions.

Delegates to GATT of Third World countries which were at the meeting said that as a result of the informal meeting, it has now been agreed that the industrial countries should present in writing their comments on the joint paper presented by 25 Third World countries at the June 6 meeting of the GATT Council.

In their joint paper, the 25 had outlined in detail how they viewed the current state of the GATT multilateral trading system, what should be done to restore credibility and strength to the system, and the priorities for immediate actions that would enable the Third World countries to propose "specific trade negotiations, but confined to trade in goods only".

The U.S., Japan and other industrial countries have been calling for a new round of multilateral trade negotiations including "trade in services".

But none of them have formally presented their proposals to the GATT itself.

However, the U.S. and some of the other industrial countries have been calling for a high level meeting of GATT Contracting Parties (CPs), to set up a preparatory committee to agree on modalities and conditions and launch the new round.

Third World countries have so far refused to agree to this.

As a result of the informal discussions at Stockholm, it would appear that there is now an understanding that on the basis of the Third World proposals, and any other written proposals to be submitted by others, the GATT Council could consider the issues, and could decide on the convening of a high level meeting.

The next meeting of the GATT Council is set for mid-July.

As the Third World countries see it, such a high level meeting would have to see whether there is any consensus on the issues involved, the content of the negotiations, areas to be covered, time-table, etc.

If there is no consensus, they should try to evolve a consensus and this might need more than one meeting of the high level officials.

The issue of setting up a preparatory committee for a new round of negotiations could arise only on the basis of any consensus at the level of the high-level meeting.

While this view of the Third World on procedure would appear to be partly shared by the EEC and some of the Europeans, the U.S. would appear to see the high-level meeting as merely an event for the setting up of a preparatory committee for the trade negotiations, and the actual decision of the GATT Council on the convening of the high level meeting, a mere technicality.

The statement of the Swedish Minister at Stockholm said that the discussions in the GATT Council, on the basis of the various written papers, "would initiate an evolving process to identify negotiation priorities and goals and should facilitate a decision to convene senior officials meetings, hopefully starting by the end of September".

Third World countries say even this time-table would very much depend on the kind of written submissions that the U.S. and other industrial countries present to GATT, and in time to enable these being studied in the capitals of the Third World countries, before the mid-July meeting of the GATT Council.

A further complication, could well come from the fact that no African country had been invited to the Stockholm meeting, even though Egypt, for example, is a member of the GATT’s top policy-making consultative group of eighteen (CG-18).

Some of the African countries say they will not concern themselves with what was discussed or understanding reached in Stockholm, or even allow any references to it at the Council.

As far as they are concerned discussions would start at the July Council meeting from the point where the issue was left at the last meeting in June.

At that time, efforts to set up an informal mechanism for consultations to reach a consensus on the convening of a high-level meeting was blocked by the Third World, and the only agreement was to put the issue on the agenda again.