Speech #960093873

MFN status for Romania has resulted In the development of many avenues for influence and direction with respect to Western business enterprise. Western culture. and Western ideology. In granting MFN status. whereby mutual benefits are realized. the United States has reserved for itself. in statute. a specific avenue for influence with respect to emigration. The JacksonVanik amendment provides that a Communist country. in order to gain MFN status. must permit free emigration or. in cases where the President waives the requirement. the country must make a concerted and measurable effort to improve its emigration situation. The waiver is granted as a result of a determination by the President that such a waiver will promote the objectives of free emigration with respect to the country in question. I believe the objectives of the JacksonVanik amendment are being achieved with respect to Romania and that MFN status is one of the most important mechanisms by which free emigration can continue to be promoted in that country. Since MFN with extended in 1974. overall emigration from Romania to the United States has increased from 312 in fiscal year 1975 to 1.196 in fiscal year 1978. As of the end of May of this year. emigration levels are more than 50 percent higher than a comparable period last year. Overall emigration from Romania to West Germany is almost 10 times as high as to the United States. The figures are discouraging with respect to emigration from Romania to Israel. Emigration to Israel. thus far this year. is 30 percent below a comparable period of time last year. The committee is very concerned about the figures on Romanian emigration to Israel and has reviewed very carefully the possible causes for this downturn. At this time. we think it is possible that the reduction in emigration to Israel is not the result of any discriminatory practice or procedure on the part of the Romanian Government. but rather is the result of the reduced Jewish population. estimated s at 40.000. which accounts for the lions I share of Romanians desiring emigration to Israel. As well. the Jewish community in Romania is largely composed of elderly people not wishing to leave their homes at this point in their lives. Furthermore. persons of Jewish background t may emigrate from Romania without - going to Israel. and therefore would not - be reflected. separately. in the statistics. - Nevertheless. the Jewish community in the United States sought and received r assurances from the Romanian Government that. hopefully. will remove whatever impediments to Jewish emigration that may remain. As a consequence of these assurances. Bnai Brith. the or- ganization that took the lead in the ne- gotiations. has endorsed a continuation - of the waiver and of MFN status. Another matter of great concern to the committee is the allegation that preapplication procedures in various localities in Romania are used in a discriminatory way. that such procedures are unstructured and therefore are unpredictable. and that they may be used to disguise emigration statistics in order to give an unrealistic picture of an improved emigration situation. We strongly protest any such use of preapplication procedures and will monitor very closely over the next year the performance of the Romanian Government in seeing that such procedures are not used to reduce the number of applications for emigration or to otherwise thwart the JacksonVanik amendment. In spite of the problems that admittedly exist. Romanias performance with respect to emigration has improved markedly since MFN was extended 5 years ago. MFN status for Romania. along with the JacksonVanik requirements has given the United States considerable leverage and influence over Romanias emigration policies. The policies of the Romanian Government are by no means perfect. Romania is a Communist country with a society much different than our own and a government much more repressive than we would like to see. But we must not lose sight of the fact that the extent to which we can force our values on any Communist country i.. very limited. However. a normalized trade situatior that is tied to the requirement that continued improvement in emigration also be shown represents a degree of leverage and influence that we do not want to lose. Without MFN. such leverage and influence would not exist. Nor could it easily be replaced should it be taken away. There is a great risk that Romania would return to even more repressive policies. placing untold hardships on prospective emigrants. should we prevent the extension of the waiver authority today. I urge my colleagues to vote for continued MFN status. and for the continued involvement of the United States on behalf of those who wish to emigrate from Romania. by voting for the Vanik motion to table the resolution of disapproval. I thank the chairman for yielding.