C O N F I D E N T I A L OSLO 000410

SIPDIS
SENSITIVE

EUR/NB (MMCDOWELL), PLEASE PASS TO DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
(PDYCK,LMARKOWITZ,CPETERS), USTR (JBUNTIN), DEPARTMENT OF
JUSTICE (JZACHARIA)

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/24/2018
TAGS: ECON ETRD KIPR NO
SUBJECT: SPECIAL 301- NORWAY

REF: A. STATE 43159

B. OSLO 1039

Classified By: DCM Kevin M. Johnson, Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (SBU) On April 25 Reftel A points were delivered to MFA
U.S. Liaison Morten Aasland and the Ministry of Trade and
Industry's Industrial Development and Industrialization
section Director General Jan Farberg and Deputy Director
General Ola Andreas Lindeman. (Note: Morten Berg, the Trade
Ministry liaison handling the pharmaceutical matter, has been
taken off this issue).


2. (SBU) Noting the designation with regret, the Trade
Ministry team admitted that this issue has been brought up
frequently by Post, many USG agencies and private industry.
Farberg commented that the GON will look thoroughly as to how
this problem should be dealt with. We raised the February
2008 letter from Commerce DAS Dyck to Deputy Trade Minister
Rikke Lind, where the DAS outlined his disappointment over
the lack of Norwegian follow-up on this issue. (Note: We
asked that a GON response should specifically explain why a
regulatory fix, similar to that accomplished in Finland,
would not be possible). He pledged that a response letter to
DAS Dyck was forthcoming.


4. (C) While we reiterated the pharma issue's importance
was evidenced by the Watch List designation, Lindeman focused
on how the issue should fit into the parameters of future
Informal Commercial Exchange (ICE) Talks. He mentioned that
the ICE talks may "create expectations that cannot be
filled." (Per Reftel B, Deputy Minister Lind proposed direct
dialogue between the USG and GON on the pharma issue during

the 2007 ICE talks, which have only sporadically occurred due
to GON intransigence, with no resolution). Lindeman proceeded
to move away from the pharma issue, and concentrate on the
mechanics of the post-ICE action plan, including a broad
discussion as to which issues were left outstanding. He
stressed the desire to highlight successes in open-ended ICE
action plan items. While he spoke of removing the pharma
issue from the action plan list, we reminded him that the
pharma issue was important, and needed to be addressed in
some forum--as demonstrated by today's demarche. (Note:
Lindeman briefly raised the GON's concerns on salmon market
access, a long-standing trade hurdle, without clarifying
whether, per Reftel B, solution of that issue was linked to
resolution of the pharma dispute).


5. (C) Comment. Discussions with the Trade Ministry
revealed GON disappointment, but Lindeman and Farberg
attempted to move the conversation to a broader discussion of
the ICE action plan and format, indicating an urge to note
successes. In this sense, the GON curiously did not want to
spend much time on the topic. When we raised the Finnish
regulatory "fix," both were unaware as to how other European
countries had similarly corrected pharma loopholes, something
which has been repeatedly pointed out to them and their
colleagues over the last several years by industry. An
informal discussion with Lindeman also revealed his intention
to firm up the 2008 ICE process, ensuring that the 301 Watch
List designation would be dealt with this calendar year, and
not in 2009. Berg's dismissal as the point person on this
matter could be interpreted as a telling sign from the GON,
whose unresponsiveness to repeated USG and private industry
attempts to fix this problem culminated in the Watch List
designation.

WHITNEY