EC AND COMECON ENDS TALKS WITH PROGRESS

  The European Community (EC) and
  Soviet-led Comecon ended talks here, having made progress on
  setting up formal trade relations, but no breakthrough because
  of Comecon's refusal to recognise West Berlin as part of the
  EC, delegates said.
      Negotiators were trying to reach agreement on the draft of
  a joint declaration setting up official relations after 30
  years of mutual non-recognition. John Maslen, head of the EC
  delegation, told Reuters as he emerged from the final session:
  "We made some progress, but we have called for another meeting."
      Officials, who asked not to be named, said the Comecon team
  had refused to accept a clause in the draft declaration which
  would recognise West Berlin as part of the 12-nation EC.
      Under the 1957 Treaty of Rome all contracts and agreements
  signed by the Community must contain this territorial clause
  stipulating West Berlin is an integral part of the EC. An EC
  negotiator taking part in the three-day talks said: "We wanted
  the territorial clause in, but Comecon said no."
      A joint statement issued after the talks said progress was
  made towards clarifying positions, but another meeting would be
  necessary to complete the work.
      Any decision in principle to set up relations would require
  approval by the Community's Council of Ministers and by the
  executive committee of Comecon.
      Zdzislaw Kuroski, deputy director of Comecon, who heads the
  East bloc delegation, told Reuters ahead of today's session: "We
  have narrowed our differences on a range of questions, but not
  on all questions."
      Asked whether Comecon would accept EC insistence that any
  joint declaration stipulate West Berlin as part of the
  Community, he replied: "This question is not contained in the
  draft which our side presented."
      West German diplomats said they would insist on including
  the clause on West Berlin in any EC-Comecon agreement.
      The talks followed an earlier round between the two trading
  blocs here last September and the first-ever direct talks
  between the EC and the Soviet Union on establishing diplomatic
  relations in January.
      The EC trades with individual Comecon member states despite
  non-recognition of Comecon. Last year, the EC had a five
  billion dlr trade deficit with East European states, about half
  the deficit of the previous year, due to a drop in the price of
  Soviet oil imported by the EC.
  

