73. The representative of Hungary welcomed the Draft Text as a well elaborated text which built usefully on previous informal papers and discussions and also provided clarity about the goals of the negotiations and the range of options as well. The paper was correctly termed a note; it could not be the Chair's proposal while there were still various proposals on the table. However, he was disappointed that the Special Session, within four months of the Cancún deadline, was still working on a paper with options, including some which clearly did not even come close to meeting the mandate. He nevertheless accepted the Chair's approach to have all options presented and was surprised by some delegations' statements that they could not accept the Chair's note as a basis for further discussions. Compared to the process of negotiations in agriculture, the Special Session was in the phase of an overview paper; delegations would have to take positions and the Chair would subsequently present a text which would be the real starting point of negotiations. He viewed the discussions in this session as an exchange of views. Regarding the multilateral nature of the system, he could accept the notion that participation would be voluntary. However, this did not mean that there would not be any effects whatsoever on non-participating Members. A multilateral system should cover at least the 146 Members. Otherwise, it would be a plurilateral system, which would not correspond to the mandate. He reaffirmed Hungary's position that countries could choose to join the system and, if they chose not to joint it, it would mean that they forgo the right to notify and register names of wines and spirits; in that event, they clearly would not have to take part in covering the costs. However, this did not mean that there were no effects on the non-participating countries. Hungary had on previous occasions indicated which effects should be on Members.
