WATCHING THE WORLD DIALOGUE IN PARIS

With Roger Vielvoye from London France seems to have pulled off a minor diplomatic coup in winning a tentative acceptance from the International Energy Agency to attend the producer-consumer conference scheduled July 2 in Paris. With the U.S. and Britain implacably opposed to any sort of producer-consumer dialogue, previous attempts to lure the agency into a dialogue have foundered.

June 10, 1991

3 min read

France seems to have pulled off a minor diplomatic coup in winning a tentative acceptance from the International Energy Agency to attend the producer-consumer conference scheduled July 2 in Paris.

With the U.S. and Britain implacably opposed to any sort of producer-consumer dialogue, previous attempts to lure the agency into a dialogue have foundered.

U.S. and U.K. opposition stems from a deep seated suspicion that producer-consumer dialogue has only one real objective: replacing market forces in the oil pricing world with a grandiose OPEC-style crude price management system that could never operate effectively.

AN INVITATION FOR IEA

The invitation for IEA to attend the July 2 meeting, which is cosponsored by France and Venezuela, was extended verbally June 3 at the IEA ministerial meeting in Paris by Dominique Strauss-Khan, the French industry minister.

It came within days of Iran's successful conference on international cooperation in Isfahan that seems to have put forward the message that dialogue does not necessary spell the beginning of the end for market forces.

This message and the more conciliatory tone from Iran to western interests may have contributed to the apparent softening of IEA attitudes that enabled ministers to see the post-Persian Gulf war atmosphere as an opportunity for discussions with oil producers if they are informal and as broadly based as possible.

It is still not certain in what form the IEA will be present at the Franco-Venezuelan conference. Some IEA members, not fully convinced about the usefulness of dialogue, insist the ministerial communique should contain the reminder that the market is the best allocator of resources and, therefore, oil production volumes and price determination should be left to market forces.

However, ministers, in the final paragraph of the communique, were also happy to recognize "the importance of sound relations with oil producing countries."

IEA Executive Director Mrs. Helga Steeg, who has obvious doubts about the Paris meeting, said such contacts had not been very effective in the past "so it is extremely important that what will be discussed will not be a failure ... and failure would be to embark on price negotiations."

FRENCH PRESENCE

France does not officially become a member of the agency until the National Assembly in Paris gives its approval. That will not happen until fall. It currently has a sort of advanced observer status and is starting to make it presence felt in ways other than championing dialogue between producers and consumers.

The most noticeable is the introduction of French as a working language, one of the conditions the French government managed to extract from the agency during negotiations on its belated entry.

While French might seem appropriate for an organization based in Paris, it means a change of style for an organization that has been steeped in English since its formation in the early 1970s.

And it sparked a touch of xenophobia from other members who were previously quite happy to work in English The first sign of that occurred when the German minister's speech at the governing board meeting was handed out in German for the first time.