By MADELAINE DROHAN
European Bureau
ROME--Prime Minister Jean Chretien found himself in the position yesterday of demanding that the United States stop trying to impose its laws on other countries while insisting that Canada has the right to do so.
The Prime Minister elicited a pledge from his host, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, that the Europeans at this week's Group of Seven summit in Lyon would complain to U.S. President Bill Clinton about measures the United States has taken to discourage countries from trading with Cuba.
"We can't have extraterritorial application of national laws in the situation that they've done in Helms-Burton," Mr. Chretien said, referring to U.S. legislation that allows Washington to punish foreign companies.
But when the discussion moved on to Canada's right to impose its fishing laws in international waters off the east coast, Mr. Chretien argued the opposite position.
"The irony was lost on us," said a European Union official who attended the meeting.
The argument between Canada and the European Union over fisheries was the key stumbling block to reaching a Canadian-European accord in time for Mr. Chretien to sign it in Rome. Mr. Prodi was to sign for the EU, because Italy currently holds the rotating presidency of the 15-member union.
Diplomats from both sides negotiated up to the last minute to no avail. European fishing off the coast of Canada has been a delicate bilateral problem since Canada sent boats into the Atlantic to challenge fishing vessels from Spain and Portugal last year. And Spain was blamed by officials from both Canada and EU for holding up a Canada-EU deal.
Mr. Chretien said yesterday that the fishing disagreement was not the only problem holding up the bilateral deal. But he refused to give further details.
A senior Canadian official said later that Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg had concerns about differences on labour standards and the environment. But the official said they could all probably be resolved within weeks. This means a Canadian-European accord could be signed later this year when Ireland holds the six-month rotating EU presidency.
The disagreement on the accord did not prevent Canada and the UE from plotting strategy to take on Mr. Clinton at the G7 summit on the Helms-Burton bill. "In this case, Canada and Italy have the same position," Mr. Prodi said.
Jacques Santer, the top EU bureaucrat, said the Europeans had already raised the issue with Mr. Clinton during a meeting in Washington earlier this month and had resolved at their meeting last week in Florence to continue pressing their case. Mr. Santer has said the Helms-Burton bill threatens transatlantic relations.
The Europeans are also worried that the bomb in Saudi Arabia will lead the United States to push through legislation similar to Helms-Burton to cover so-called rogue states like Libya and Iraq.
An EU official said that the meeting of the Europeans raised the idea of passing a Europe- wide blocking legislation similar to Canada's. This prevents Cuban exiles in the United States who have won judgments against Canadian companies from collecting those judgments in Canada.
Mr. Chretien said he wants a concerted effort at the G7 summit. "If all the countries at the summit mention the problem, it's putting a lot of pressure," he said.*
As the debate over U.S. actions went on in Rome, the U.S. government maintained its pressure on Havana with claims that Cuban authorities had attempted to deceive international aviation investigators about the incident that led to the Helms-Burton bill.
In that incident, the Cuban air force shot down two U.S.-registered civilian aircraft last Feb. 24, setting off protests in the United States, particularly among the Cuban exile community in Florida. Under political pressure in an election year, Mr. Clinton reversed his previous opposition to the Helms-Burton bill.
In Montreal yesterday, U.S. Transporation Secretary Federico Pena characterized the incident as the "cold-blooded murder" of four people and urged the International Civil Aviation Organization to condemn Cuba.
He said the ICAO investigation proves that the two Cessna aircraft, flown by crews from the Miami-based Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue, were in international airspace when they were shot out of the air by Cuban jet fighters, Mr. Pena said.
The actual ICAO report is yet to be officially released, but Mr. Pena said the evidence shows the Cuban government blatantly lied with its claim that a MiG made a warning pass in front of one of the Cessnas to divert it before firing.
Mr. Pena also said evidence from the crew of a Norwegian cruise ship, Majesty of the Seas, which was sailing in the area, supports the conclusion that the Cessnas were at least nine nautical miles outside Cuban airspace.
He made only indirect reference to the Cuban complaint that previous Brothers to the Rescue flights had crossed into Cuban airspace and flown over Havana.
The U.S. government does not condone the violation of sovereign airspace, but "you cannot
accept the notion that people can be hunted down and killed for dropping leaflets or deviating
from flight plans," Mr. Pena told the ICAO governing council.
(text of June 27, 1996 Globe and Mail front-page article)
-*
I'LL HAVE MORE TO SAY ABOUT THIS SUBJECT ONCE I GET AROUND TO THE ISSUE OF WHAT EXACTLY A "MILLIGRAM" IS AND IF "WHAT THEY DON'T KNOW, CAN'T HURT THEM" WILL WORK IN THIS CASE.
BUT FOR NOW, RE THE ANNOTATION HERE: THIS IS WHERE I GOT THE IDEA TO PUT GUESTBOOKS IN EACH OF THE 'WHAT YOU CAN DO' SECTIONS OF THE WEBSITE.
IN THE MEANTIME:
TAKE TWO BRIEF SIDESTEPS HERE.
AND ON THE SUBJECT OF THE HELMS-BURTON BILL, TAKE YOUR NEXT FOOTSTEP HERE.