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the French and the Italians would probably be much closer to the liberalisation positions of the Benelux countries and Germany than they had ever been before (existing bilateral agreements, France/Japan of 1967; and Italy/Japan of 1968, provided for a considerable extension of liberalisation to be accomplished before the end of 1969). He therefore thought that there was a real chance that a Community/Japan negotiation could be got under-way towards the end of this year or early in 1970. There would of course be difficulties over the safeguard clauses on which there were different practices in the member states but this difficulty could be overcome, The fact that the Japanese had asked the Comunity, as such, for an Article 4 textile agreement was a forerunner of this trend,
5. On Hong Kong he admitted there was more difficulty, There remained a large discrepancy between the different practices of the member states, with France taking very little and Germany a great deal. This discrepancy could only be removed very gradually. But he was convinced that the Community must be ready to negotiate with Hong Kong some day and must be prepared to do so in a reasonably liberal spirit, with no question of the French restrictiveness being extended to those member states now observing more liberal practices. This last comment gave me the opportunity to suggest that the Commission position on the extension of the Unctad preference scheme to Hong Kong hardly seemed to bear out such a liberal attitude. Ernst agreed and said that we must continue to press the Commission on this。
6.
Bilateral commercial agreements.
Ernst then turned to the problems which were now arising over the bilateral commercial agreements which the member states had with many third countries, He recalled the 1961 decision that such agreements should not be prolonged beyond the end of the transitional period and the provisions of the Treaty which laid down that there should be a common commercial policy after the end of the transitional period. But he added that, although the juridical position was clear, the Commission had been given too little time between now and the end of the transitional period to evolve a coherent policy. At the moment all they were doing was to suggest that the renewal date of current agreements should not be carried beyond the end of 1969. It might be necessary to leave the member states a certain amount of freedom beyond that period so long as there was no conflict with the emergence of a common commercial policy. In any case the Commission would be making proposals about the handling of these bilateral agreements before the end of the year,
Eastern Europe.
Ernst admitted that perhaps the biggest problem in the commercial policy field was the question of trade with Eastern Europe, which had been specifically excluded from
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