Dear David,
Miss Stoffant Ms/1
: Enter
15/1
Pl. copy to Mr. Stewart
in H.K.D.
13th January 1969.
JMcK 1571
UNCTAD Preferences
Thank you for your leiter of the 7th January. I fully take your point about the difficulty the BBC have in altering a negotiating position or an offer list once they have reached agreement on its being tabled. It is quite true that most of the offers tabled by the DEC in March 1967 were not altered before final agreement was roached. However, their main trading partners, in particular the USA, Scandinavia and ourselves, pressed them very hard to improve their offers in a number of ways and we all achieved some success along these lines by offering cuts in our duties on steel; for example, we persuaded the LLC to maintain their original offer on chemicals in addition to making a number of concessions to us on a few industrial and agricultural items. I would not agree, therefore, that it is completely unrealistic to expect that the LC may give some ground in negotiation if strong pressure is brought to bear. The Kennedy Round was a negotiation in which the EEC were dealing with their main trading partners. They may be somewhat more flexible in the present case but this remains to be seen.
2. I have not had the opportunity of consulting the other recipients of your letter and this is by way of an interim reply. In any case, Bob Goldsmith and I will be seeing the other participants in the OECD Working Group in Paris next week and we may then learn a little more of the EECS intentions. Your reports on what you have leant have, of course, been extremely interesting. I think however we can claim that the Community's representatives in both the OECD Group and in the Special Committee on Preferences in Geneva are well aware of our views with regard to the scheme as a whole and the inclusion of Hong Kong. The question is, therefore, whether additional representations in Brussels might supplement what the Commission's own representatives may be reporting as our views.
I shall write to you again after I am back from Paris,
D.II.A.Hannay Esq.,
The United Kingdom Delegation to the
European Communities,
52, avenue des Arts,
Bruxelles,4.
Belgium.
cc. Mr.
Morris CRE.1
Mr. Whitehead
FCO
Lt.
QUE.
Yours ever,
0.1.Kemnis