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practice but which would be difficult to resist. UNCTAD Secretariat and some of the more realistic of the developing countries were well aware of the position and the force of events would in due course undoubtedly lead to a change in the details of the timetable, especially with regar to the nature of the end-June meeting.
Working Groups in UNCTAD
8. There was considerable scepticism in the Group about the desirability of agreeing at this stage to the establish- ment of Working Groups in UNCTAD to consider detailed aspects of a preferences scheme, especially if they were to meet inter-sessionally and start work before the end-June Session. On this question a paper had been circulated by the UNCTAD Secretariat (TD)/B/AC.5/11 enclosed), paragraph 11 of which sets out their ideas on the composition of working groups. Certain delegations, particularly the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, were prepared to go along with these ideas and stressed the (in their view) desirability of consulting the developing countries before the potential donors' ideas had become too cut and dried. But this was very much a minority view. Others (particularly the U.S., Canada, Ja pan, Belgium and to some degree Switzerland) were against the establishment of inter-sessional working groups on most subjects at any time, arguing that such groups would he sources of further undesirable pressure from the LDCs. 3till others (U.K., France, Germany, EEC Cermission), while not necessarily being op osed in principle to the idea, considered that it was premature to agrec at this stage how many groups there should be and what they should cover. It was stressed that all aspects of a preferences scheme were inter-related, that substantive consultations with developing countries could not begin until the OECD countries had done their work and that, for these reasons, the consultations with LDCs would need to begin in the full UNCTAD Committee. There was, however, general agreement that it might be helpful to agree to the establishment of one working group on the technical aspects of rules of origin to start work in June between the second and third sessions of the UNCTAD Committee.
3. Finally, en a proposal by Reed (Norway), it was agreed that a Group B line on this question would be drafted in the following terms
(1) Group B would agree to the establishment of an
appropriate mechanism for detailed consultations in UNCTAD when adequate documentation was available, (2) they could agree straight away to set up a working
group on the technical aspects of rules of origin, to meet inter-sessionally, and
(3) other elements for which working groups had been
proposed were so inter-linked that it was only on the basis of full documentation resulting from OECD discussions that the feasibility of setting up further machinery in UNCTAD could be considered.
This proposal, which will be the basis of Group B's line in Geneva, was set down on paper and I enclose a copy.
/Rules of Origin
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