BRUSSELS -- Nearly three years after starting talks on an energy linkup between western Europe and the former Soviet Union, 50 countries are closing in on signing a scaled-down European Energy Charter.


Chief negotiator Charles Rutten said Monday he has proposed breaking the charter into two treaties, leaving the most difficult issues for a separate accord in three years time.


Based on a 1990 plan introduced by Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, the Energy Charter was meant to create European rules for energy trade and investment, opening the way for EU companies to invest in the former Soviet Union's energy sector in return for better access to Soviet oil exports.


The United States, Japan, Australia and Canada joined the talks from the beginning.


Rutten, a Dutch diplomat, listed a series of problems that still must be overcome to secure agreement on the first treaty, including resistance by the charter's sponsor, the European Union, to some of the proposed trade liberalization and investment provisions.


After a week of talks in Brussels, Rutten said the last hurdles still had to be settled.


Failure to do so, he said, could spell the end of the effort.


"It was the general feeling of delegations that it is now high time to finish the negotiations," Rutten said.


He said if negotiating partners do hammer out their differences, they could sign a first treaty in July. A second treaty would come in July 1997, he said.


However, the negotiations have drawn on for years as charter members debated clauses committing them to national treatment for foreign companies, transition periods and exemptions.


Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, an initial negotiating partner, disintegrated and its successor states joined the talks, boosting the number of participants to 50 from 35.


Rutten said that the biggest obstacle to the plan now is discord on how to treat foreign companies in the "pre-investment" stage of a project or contract.


Rutten said the "pre-investment" phase of the charter would thus be left to the second treaty, enabling countries to sign up for the bulk of the program now.


However, still unresolved are EU demands it be allowed to continue protection of its uranium producers from low-priced Russian imports.Rutten said he believes Russia will eventually accept "a certain amount of market management" in uranium trade in view of EU concerns.