U.S., Allies Ease Curbs on High-Tech Exports to Eastern Europe

The United States and its major allies agreed Thursday on a sweeping overhaul of Western restrictions on high-technology exports to nations of the former Soviet Bloc, easing the way for the sale of billions of dollars of equipment to help modernize Eastern Europe.

The compromise, which represents the most radical revamping of Western export controls since the late 1940s, will immediately eliminate requirements for export licenses on 38 categories of high-technology goods destined for either the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe.

At the same time, between now and December the allies will scrap existing limits on 116 other items now being controlled and write a new, far shorter list of restrictions. The move is designed to tailor the controls system to the post-Cold War period.

Thursday’s decision, which followed a two-day Paris meeting of the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, means that East European countries--and in some cases the Soviet Union--will be able to buy almost any computer, machine tool or telecommunications equipment that is intended for commercial use.

The compromise also offers special treatment for Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia, which have agreed to establish tough safeguards to prevent the technology from being used for military purposes and to allow on-site inspections by the Western allies.

Allan Wendt, the U.S. representative to the meeting, said that the allies eventually may lift all restrictions on the sale of sensitive technology to those countries. He said that other former Communist countries could qualify for similar treatment by adopting parallel controls.

Thursday’s accord was portrayed as a victory by the Bush Administration. The Administration drafted the compromise in May after some of the allies threatened to bolt from the 17-country Cocom, which administers the system.

Until the Administration bowed to allied pressure, the United States had been virtually alone in insisting that the previous controls be maintained. Japan and most Western European countries were demanding increased freedom to sell to the former Soviet Bloc nations.

U.S. officials feared that if Cocom had broken apart, it would deal a major blow to the continuation of restrictions on technology that truly is strategically sensitive, such as that used in the production of sophisticated weapons.

There was no immediate estimate on how much East-West trade might be increased as a result of Thursday’s decisions. Commerce Department officials said that about $45 billion worth of trade might be freed from licensing requirement but that most such licenses had been granted routinely.

On Wednesday, the House passed and sent to the Senate a bill that would ease restrictions on high-tech exports to the Soviet Union and other Communist or formerly Communist nations. The legislation, however, includes a provision to block high-tech sales to the Soviet Union unless it lifts its blockade of Lithuania and permits free emigration of Soviet Jews.

Cocom was established during the late 1950s to prevent the transfer of sophisticated technology to Communist countries. The group includes all members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Japan and Australia.

Thursday’s accord eliminates controls on 30 products that no longer are considered to be of strategic value, including transistors, electric furnaces, floating docks and printed circuit-board-making equipment. Eight more categories will be relaxed in August.

Existing controls on munitions and nuclear energy goods will not be changed.