To: Governor, Hong Kong
Repeated to Brussels for Dodge UKMIS Geneva for Pearson CODEL Brussels
A
Following
CONFIDENTIAL
From Mills
PRIORITY
EEC Generalised Preference Scheme: Proposed Exclusion of 12 Items
1. Dodge and I saw Schoffer of the Commission on
Thursday afternoon (11 November): Tran had left
for Paris.
2.
2 Schoffer said that the Commission had under
consideration proposals to exclude Hong Kong from preference
proposals in respect of 12 items.
ways in which this could be done:
(a)
There were three
exclusion by Community regulation of
dependent territories,
(b)
(c)
exclusion by Community regulation of
Hong Kong alone,
A voluntary undertaking by Hong Kong not to
claim preference in respect of these items.
He hoped Hong Kong could accept last alternative
since to do so would be to give effect to an assurance
which had been exchanged between EEC and HMG officials
during entry negotiations. I responded that Hong
Kong could not agree voluntarily to forego preference on
t items in question and expressed surprise that any
assurance had been given as Schoffer had alleged. I
said that I had had discussions with HMG officials on
Tuesday (9th November) and it had been clear from that
discussion that the HMG officials with whom I spoke had
"no knowledge of any such assurance and that it was
inconceivable that such an assurance would have been
given without the knowledge of the Hong Kong Government.
Schoffer admitted that he himself had only become aware
of the assurance within the past two or three weeks but
The