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seriously in the Commission because of its connection with
possible British entry into the Community. The Commission
had reached the conclusion that the bringing into force of a
generalised system of preferences could be of considerable assistance in easing the problems of the developing Common- wealth countries in any future negotiations on British entry. This was basically the reason why opinion in the Commission
was now swinging round to the view that something should be worked out to accommodate Hong Kong.
American Position
4.
Tran then went on to point out that, in this context, the American position was becoming worrying. If the Americans
were to produce proposals which were inadequate, and especially if they were to exclude all textile products, this would create serious problems for the Community, particularly as
regards Hong Kong. In other words, if the Americans produced
a scheme which was reasonably liberal then the Commission
would press very hard for the Community to maintain a liberal
position as well. But if the American scheme turned out to be restrictive (particularly as regards textiles) the Community would find it difficult to maintain their position. added that it would be helpful if HMG were to use what leverage they had with the U.S. Government to persuade them to produce as generous proposals as possible, especially as this would enable the Community to adopt a position on this question
designed to help facilitate British entry.
Tran
5. I pointed out to Tran that the bases on which the previous
sensitive lists had been compiled were not clear to us. For
instance, there was a general sensitive list, a "Hong Kong"
sensitive list and vague references to semi-sensitive products. How did these relate to the new figures he had just produced?
/Tran said
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