Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 7, 1990 TAG: 9004070095
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: BONN, WEST GERMANY LENGTH: Medium
Delegates said only a few word changes remain before the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe accepts a proposal by the United States and the European Community that will map out the foundations of the economic revolution now beginning in Eastern Europe. Delegates expect to announce an agreement early next week.
"We felt it was very important for the participating countries to state clearly and unmistakably the market principles that we believe in," said Alan Holmer, the U.S. delegate.
The agreement will not commit any country to specific reform steps. But delegates said that by endorsing the basic tenets of a market economy, the communist and formerly communist countries will be on record as open to entrepreneurship from within and investment from Western nations.
"The principles do acquire a moral and political force of their own" that can help both local business people and foreign governments pressing for reforms, Holmer said.
The countries expected to sign the statement of economic principles - including all East European nations except Albania - will agree that they need to join Western countries in a common, market-based system that "relies primarily on the freedom of individual enterprise." And the countries will state that "while governments provide the overall framework for economic activity, business partners make their own decisions."
Western delegates say they not only have succeeded in getting reforming East European countries to open themselves to market forces, but also to guarantee that Western businesses will be able to take home their profits in convertible currencies.
Only the Soviet delegation has resisted accepting the principles of market economics. Soviet delegates have been reluctant to endorse language guaranteeing private property and the ability of foreign investors to take profits out of the country. But that reluctance has eased in recent days and both Eastern and Western delegates said an agreement is at hand.
"The Soviets are coming to grips with hard problems that have no simple political solutions," said a Western diplomat who has been negotiating with the Soviets. "They realize they must finally start down what will be a painful road."
About 1,000 business leaders and a like number of diplomats from nearly all European countries, the United States and Canada assembled here for the economic version of the CSCE summit that is expected to consider the new political shape of Europe sometime this fall.
Bankers and economists said the East Europeans picked up valuable advice about the role banks need to play in encouraging investment in their struggling countries. And the East European governments put themselves on record as having accepted that free trade, prices based on supply and demand, and the right to own private property are essential to improving the standard of living.
"In the long run, it's the passage of know-how that will pay the biggest dividends," said Helen Sinclair, president of the Canadian Bankers Association. "There's no way on Earth that the amount of capital required for Eastern European reconstruction can come for the most part from (Western) markets."
by CNB