6:54 AM Nov 28, 1996

NEGOTIATING TO THE WIRE

Geneva 28 Nov (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- Trade ambassadors were due to meet again Thursday afternoon in their efforts to reach some consensus on the text of a draft Declaration for their Ministers meeting in Singapore on 9 December.

But it seemed certain that the issues of labour standards and the new issues as well as any Ministerial pronouncements on the agriculture and textiles and clothing may land in the lap of the Ministers -- injecting a strong North-South overtone to the Singapore meeting.

Since Monday, the negotiators have been meeting virtually around the clock, till the wee hours of the morning, except for some meal-breaks, but have not been able to find any compromise on workers rights, new issues or the agriculture and textiles and clothing issues.

They have been working on a draft declaration text prepared by the secretariat and put forward at the informal heads-of-delegation process by the WTO Director-General, Mr. Renato Ruggiero, who is chairing the process.

The draft was commented upon at the 22 November informal HOD meeting.

On Monday, a smaller group of countries, at level of ambassadors, met to go para by para over the draft to reach some agreed language that would command consensus.

The informal hard bargaining of the key countries, chaired by Ruggiero, in 'green-room' consultations, (meeting in the D.G.'s conference room, whose wall decor is no longer 'green' but a shade of 'beige') which lasted all of Monday and well into the night, has now been shifted to a larger room and expanded into an open-ended group.

But progress has been slow and difficult - with questions like regional agreements and environment issues (where the agreed formulations in the committee reports is being sought to be changed) taking hours of wrangling over semantics to get a compromise.

On the services issue, and the question of future negotiations for liberalisation (pending ones like financial services, basic telecom and maritime services), as well as future rounds of liberalisation negotiations, and to take up some work in the rules areas, some compromise language was evolved Wednesday, but this is yet to be cleared by the negotiators.

Some Third World delegations said even the acceptance of the compromise language evolved ad referendum, would depend on the outcome on Textiles and Clothing. As one of them said, "if the majors won't go beyond the Agreement in this area, there is no need for us to go beyond the GATS either."

There had been some suggestions Wednesday that the US might "trade off" some textiles and clothing formulation (which would in any event not commit the US to anything beyond the Agreement) for acceptance of its demands for the Ministerial Declaration to contain a paragraph on labour standards.

But several developing country delegations said there was no conceivable "trade-off" by which they would allow labour standards to figure in the Declaration.

By Wednesday night, negotiators were still stuck on formulations over implementation of the agreement on textiles and clothing -- where the exporting countries want language to ensure 'commercially meaningful' integration in the two further stages.

The major importing countries so far have "integrated" only those products whose imports into their countries have not been restricted by them under the multifibre agreement. Canada has been the only exception, integrating just one product, 'gloves'.

The US, EU and Canada, whose integration plans would enable them to postpone integration of the sensitive and very sensitive categories (some estimations suggest that in the case of the US this would mean nearly 80% in value terms) until the very last day (end of 2004), are resisting any language requiring them to do more, and want also language to tie their own commitments to the exporting countries providing more market access (than they are committed to in the Uruguay Round).

On agriculture, where the Uruguay Round Agreement calls for carrying forward the reform process at the end of the current six-year implementation period (year 2001), and for embarking on this work a year earlier, Argentina put forward a formulation to start research and exchange of information in 1997.

This demand by the Cairns Group of which Argentina is a member was rejected by the EU, Japan and Korea in the Committee on Agriculture. But with the agreed language and recommendations of various WTO bodies being reopened in the Ruggiero process by the industrial North, Argentina has come forward with a separate formulation to get Ministers at Singapore agree to start the information exchange process.

The negotiators, with several exhibiting frayed nerves after three days of almost non-stop talks, decided Wednesday night to call a halt, give time to everyone to sleep over things and come back on Thursday afternoon.

Ruggiero meanwhile held some plurilateral consultations, and is to come to the informal HOD meeting Thursday with some new formulations on textiles and clothing and agriculture.

Third World diplomats said they had not so far tackled the issue of labour standards or the new issues.

Given the diametrically opposed positions, no one expects any compromise to come at the level of Geneva negotiators. The issues have to be faced by Ministers at Singapore.

How these issues will be posed to the Ministers by the WTO head is not clear.

More than any of his predecessors, Ruggiero from day one in office has been pushing and promoting the agenda of the US and EU.

And both the US and the EU are said to be "encouraging" Ruggiero to take the issues to the Ministers directly, disregarding the lack of consensus at the Geneva process and the opposition of some developing countries.

Several of the key developing countries have repeatedly conveyed to Ruggiero this week their objections to his forwarding to the Ministers any formulations on these questions (that he had incorporated in his draft Declaration considered at the HOD meeting last week).

At that informal HOD plenary on 22 November, there were some forthright objections voiced by several key developing countries of Asia and Africa not only against any reference in the draft declaration of the labour standards or any of the new issues -- investment, competition policy, government procurement or anything else -- but also against any formulations not commanding consensus going before the Ministers.

In the consultations since then, these controversial questions have been put aside. And the consultation dynamics is such that the informal HOD process here may not even be able to address this issue of how and whether Ruggiero could report to Singapore on issues where there is no consensus.

Ruggiero is said to be of the view that the WTO General Council had mandated him to conduct the informal HOD process on the new issues and the Declaration, and since the Council has completed its work (on forwarding reports of the various WTO bodies to the SMC) and adjourned, he could report directly to the Ministers, who would be meeting at Singapore.

There was implicit challenge to Ruggiero for this view at the informal HOD meeting on 22 November -- with several of the statements directly and indirectly cautioning him that his siding with the US and EU in promoting their agenda would land the WTO and his own office into troubles in the post-Singapore phase.

But there are efforts within the WTO secretariat to find precedents in the old GATT process, for Ruggiero going to the Ministers with his views, disregarding the fact that the old GATT was a provisional agreement among governments, where as an EU negotiator once put it, "anything is possible between consenting adults".

But the WTO is a definite international treaty, whether or not a self-executing one in some countries.

During the Uruguay Round negotiations about the provisions of the WTO agreement, the attempt of the then head of the GATT, Mr. Peter Sutherland, to have some language about the powers of the DG to bring issues before the WTO members was rejected by the negotiators.

All of them were against any language along the lines of the UN Charter or the agreements of other international organizations that vest the head of the secretariat with some powers.

In an organization like the WTO, where contractual rights and obligations are involved, the secretariat should do only what the membership decides by consensus it should, was the view then.

On Thursday, several diplomats were unclear as to what would happen, with some concerned that if Ruggiero goes beyond reporting to the Ministers about the lack of consensus on the labour standards as well as new issues -- either suggesting some formulations and presenting a view about 'majority' and 'minority' support for them -- the SMC could be caught up in procedural wrangles.