CONFIDENTIAL
EEC Considerations
7. The arguments in paragraphs 12 and 13 are not conclusive.
Indeed, it could be argued that since we hope to achieve our
objective of membership of EEC, we shall have to adjust our
generalised preference offer in due course. It follows that
it would be easier to make this adjustment if our scheme more
closely resembles the existing EEC offer than if it is based
on a different principle.
The U.S. position
8. There is some risk of being misled by paragraph 5 into
thinking that we have a simple choice between what the EEC
are doing on the one hand and the Americans and Japanese on
the other. In fact there are at least three choicesi the EEO
aystem of duty-free quotamj the Japanese system of tariff
cuts and the Soandinavian system of duty-free entry. The
Americans have not firmly adhered to any of these three groups.
Agricultural ¿roducta
9. We agree with the Board of Trade view that our initial
offer was considerably more generous than the offers of other
countries and had to be scaled down. The size of the proposed
reduction seems about right in that it brings us more-or-less
inte line with the EEC. As regards the items which have now
been excluded we have had insufficient time to study the lists
in detail; but it appears that some concessions have been
made to the 'old' Commonwealth countries with contractual
CONFIDENTIAL
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