124. The Chairperson recalled that the Special Session had a mandate to negotiate the establishment of a multilateral system by the Fifth Session of the Ministerial Conference, which was effectively no more than six months away. Clearly, it would be necessary for participants in the negotiations to considerably step up the intensity of the work. With this in mind, he intended to have intensive consultations with delegations in the coming weeks in a variety of formats. He reassured Members that transparency would be ensured with open-ended meetings whenever necessary. As regards what should be done in these consultations, his understanding was that the Special Session needed to pursue the processes of both further clarifying and understanding the views and positions of all Members as well as of seeking to narrow differences; in other words, to negotiate. There might be some issues where it would already be possible to start identifying elements that might appear in the multilateral system. For example, this might be the case as regards the notification stage of the multilateral system. Clearly, there were other areas where the differences were more profound, for example regarding legal effect and participation; here, work might need to focus on options. What he hoped would emerge from these consultations was guidance on the negotiating text that he would, if necessary, be prepared to put on the table. He had noted the various comments that had been made on the timing of this text. All that he could say at this stage was that it continued to be his intention to make the text available in good time prior to the next meeting of the Special Session scheduled for the last week of April.
