Resolution 956 (1991)

Transfer of technology to countries of Central and Eastern Europe

Author(s): Parliamentary Assembly

Origin - Assembly debate on 29 and 30 January 1991 (21st and 23rd Sittings) (see Doc. 6337, report of the Committee on Science and Technology, Rapporteur : Mr Klejdzinski ; Doc. 6367, opinion of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development, Rapporteur : Mr Miville ; and Doc. 6373, opinion of the Committeeon Relations with European Non-Member Countries, Rapporteur : Mr Atkinson). Text adopted by the Assembly on 30 January 1991 (23rd Sitting).

1. The Assembly welcomes the measures currently afoot within the Co-ordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (Cocom) to relax restrictions on the transfer of technology to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

2. For a long time this instrument, which was set up as a practical arrangement but without any legal footing, has served to maintain the technological lead of the Western alliance over the communist bloc.

3. Today, however, the democratic process under way in Central and Eastern Europe, the introduction of a parliamentary system and economic reform have profoundly modified the situation.

4. The success, and indeed the survival, of the new regimes depend not only on political and social support, but on economic modernisation by the introduction of advanced technologies of the sort available in the West.

5. Ageing industrial plant and energy infrastructures are also responsible for environmental pollution in these countries and the consequent threat to public health.

6. In addition to these considerations of an internal nature, the gradual relaxation of Cocom regulations is in keeping with the spirit of the second basket of the CSCE (commerce and economic co-operation).

7. The Assembly therefore feels that a more radical reform of Cocom is required to cater for the new situation in Central and Eastern Europe.

8. To this end it invites Cocom member states to examine the following measures :

8.1. To this end it invites Cocom member states to examine the following measures :

8.2. To this end it invites Cocom member states to examine the following measures :

8.3. the basis of the industrial list must be reduced almost exclusively to those products with significant military implications. The new lists must be drawn up by a committee made up of real technicians, and all national foreign policy or trade policy considerations must be left aside ;

8.4. in order to strike a balance between the respective influence of the different geographical zones within Cocom, the EEC and EFTA could be given a greater role to play as political and economic entities.

9. The Assembly therefore encourages the European Economic Community and the European Free Trade Association, particularly in view of the 1992 deadline and the ever-increasing number of economic co-operation agreements being concluded between these organisations and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, to work out a common European position to submit to their partners in Cocom.

10. It suggests that a dialogue between the Cocom countries on the one hand and countries in Central and Eastern Europe in need of technology on the other be initiated within the CSCE.