CONFIDENTIAL
French Attitude
10.
Finally, on preferences, Tran said that the French position vis-à-vis Hong Kong appeared now to be more accommodating than it had been hitherto. It was beginning to be recognised that the French Government (in the person of the 1ste Kojeve) had
screed to the auto-selection principle in the report of the
old OCD Special Group. But there was, on the other hand, still considerable opposition from the auronat which was reflected
in the Ministry of Industry.
Common Commercial Policy
མ་ ཡདྡཡཾ
Tron replied that we should not
11. At the very end of our talk we touched briefly on the common commercial policy. I said that the Commission's aim to establish a common Community position on QRs, surveillance, etc. before the end of this year was causing some worry in Hong Kong. There was a danger that some items previously liberalised would he brought under restrictions.
worry over much, The basic position of the Commission was that they wanted to see all the QRS eliminated and they would press for this as hard as they could. For instance, the Commission will probably be proposing to France that she should eliminate QRs on weol and man-made fibre textiles, Tran ad.ed that; although Deniau had not been wholly in accord with this position, he was only one of 14 in the Commission. He felt that Deniau
was now suspect as he had been pushing the special French interest too far too often and this was tending to weaken his position. Certainly his staff in the Commission, including Wellenstein, Hijzen and Ernst were all strongly in favour of pressing for the elimination of Rs in the course of 1ormulating the Common Commercial Policy. I replied that that may be so but in the end it was the Council of Ministers who decided and I would be surprised if the French allowed themselves to be pushed
too far along this road.
Hong Kong Section,
U.K. Mission,
Geneva.
22 May 1969.
CONFIDENTIAL
(D.J.C. Jones)