4.
In response to Argentina's complaint about observers making proposals to amend the draft, the Chairman announced that observers would have the right only to express opinions and could not submit formal proposals. Although the complaint arose from an intervention by the International Chambers of Commerce, it was clear that the real target was the European Commission. Accordingly, the Chairman's ruling was repeated later when, at the beginning of the debate on the Treaty itself, several Community states announced that their position would be presented by the Commission. The Director General commented that the Commission was there as an observer and as such could only speak after all states had spoken. Nor could states re-open discussion following statements by observers. This meant therefore that the Presidency (Greece) had to make proposals on behalf of the Community.
5. Given that the discussion of the Treaty did not get underway until Wednesday, one could reasonably have expected the Community to have developed by then an agreed line on most aspects of the Treaty (especially since co-ordination meetings were taking place morning, noon and night). However this was not to be the case. For the first few days Community co-ordination had gone ahead without interpreters, the Greek Presidency having given priority to servicing the GATT meetings. However, this led to repeated complaints from France, West Germany and Italy, not helped by the fact that the Council Secretariat man appeared to have no idea what his role in all this was, and seemingly made no attempt to improve arrangements. The atmosphere became all the more strained when the French delegate, Mlle Vidaud, reported that she was under instructions not to allow texts to be submitted to WIPO without first having seen and approved the texts in French. The Greek Chairman, Michael Marinos, whose command of English is not great, whose command of French is non-existent, and who has little experience of international/community procedures was not particularly effective, being unable to graso the initiative in the co-ordination meetings, and, on more than on occasion, failing to recognise when agreement had been reached.
6. Matters improved somewhat towards the end of the first week with interpreters becoming available but by then it was too late and the result was that the Community was unable to get written proposals submitted on a number of occasions. Moreover, when the Green Presidency expressed orally the views of the Community, it was usually necessary for other Community states to speak as well in order to clarify the Presidency's statement! (Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg and Ireland were not represented during the first week.)
7. Before the debate moved on to the draft Treaty, Japan (apparently with US encouragement) called a Group B meeting. This annoyed a number of states including Switzerland, Italy and West Germany who felt that Group meetings would serve only to polarise the feelings between developed and
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