European Insurers to Discuss U.S. Entry Barriers in WTO Talks.

Europe's largest federation of services industries has declared that improved access to the U.S. insurance market will be a top goal in the World Trade Organization's newly launched negotiations on global services trade.

Representatives from the European Services Forum say they will target state-level restrictions on insurers as a barrier to trade that must be lifted as part of a new WTO services agreement. A delegation from the forum, which represents more than 80 European companies and service industry associations, was in Geneva for two days of meetings with officials from the United States, Japan and other key WTO-member countries to discuss their priorities for the negotiations.

Andrew Buxton, the former chairman of Barclays Bank who is the forum's chairman, said one of the top goals for his federation would be to improve access to markets around the world for insurers in asset-management services. The forum will focus on the management of pension funds, which remain out of bounds for foreign operators in many WTO-member countries.

Buxton also said his federation focus on emerging markets, which drew much of the attention during the WTO's successful financial-services negotiations that concluded in December 1997, as well as on the major markets--especially the United States--where barriers to foreign insurers still exist.

"The United States still has some entry restrictions in their insurance regulations, especially at the state level," he said.

Jacques Leglu, head of international affairs for the European Committee of Insurers, said the upcoming negotiations must level the playing field between American and European insurers.

"In the European Union, there is a single market which allows the freedom of establishment," Leglu argued, contrasting that with fragmented state regulation in the United States.

Leglu acknowledged efforts by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to harmonize operating rules among states. Nevertheless, the situation remains "totally imbalanced...it's an enormous problem for European insurers," he said.

The forum's visit to Geneva followed a week of meetings in Geneva among WTO-member countries that culminated in the second special negotiating session on services. WIO members agreed in February 1999 to go ahead with negotiations on services and agriculture--both which were already mandated to begin by 2000--despite the organization's disastrous ministerial meeting in Seattle, which failed to launch a broader round of global trade talks.

The Seattle setback deprived the WTO of guidelines for carrying out the services negotiations as well as a deadline for completing them. Trade ministers had been expected to approve a three-year deadline in Seattle for concluding the new round, including services talks.

Members agreed on a work agenda for the remainder of 2000, which will include "clusters" of meetings covering issues such as the domestic regulation of professional service providers; new WTO rules on the use of subsidies and protective safeguard measures for the services industry; a review of existing country exemptions from the WTO's General Agreement on Trade and Services; and whether to abolish an existing exemption for air-traffic rights and directly related services.