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to express their views.
Goldsmith also continued to urge
forcefully the U.K. line that the self-election principle should
be adhered to because nothing better had been found to put in
its place and it had been widely accepted.
21.
The most forceful and eloquent exponent of the thesis of the
OECD developing countries was Apostolidis (Greece). He argued
that the principle which these countries stood by most firmly
was that of non-discrimination. They could not accept that,
as developing countries members of OECD, they might be excluded
from preferences, or given inferior treatment, compared with
other countries outside the Organisation whose level of
development was greater. There were two solutions. Either
the OECD developing countries should be included or, if they were
excluded, other countries with as great or higher level of
development should also be excluded.
22. This thesis evoked a few echoes around the table, including
one from Forthomme (Belgium) who said it merited serious
reflection. It bears similarities to the "Jones' blacklist"
idea vis-à-vis Hong Kong which I put forward in my memorandum
No. 74 of 7 May 1969. However, discussion showed that none
of the U.S., the EEC and Japan, the strongest supporters of the
words "in general", were willing to drop them. The Japanese,
however, agreed to refer back to Tokyo a strong request from the
OECD developing countries to delete the first sentence of the
section on Beneficiaries in their submission. In the end,
following the Chairman's conclusion that "the self-election
principle did not appear to be accepted in totality by all
governments represented round the table", it was agreed that a
passage should go into the Report to the Council to the effect that the question of beneficiaries was an important and urgent
one and should be solved as soon as possible.
23. It was significant that yet again, in the longest and
perhaps most important discussion there has yet been on
beneficiaries, no-one round the table mentioned Hong Kong
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