CONFIDENTIAL
Reference
RENEFICIARIES: DTI PAPER
TPD
Comments on points for SED and LAD
Para 1: Clause 1 of the Finance Bill enables UK to include countries "claiming developing status". Portu- gal has claimed our preferences for herself, but not specifically for her "dependent territories". We ac- cept dependencies in our scheme, but are unlikely to be able to include Portugal herself. EEC inclusion of Angola, Mozambique and Macao argues that we should do likewise, but we will certainly meet criticism from the African Commonwealth. Would there be any advant- age in our requiring Angolà etc to register in the UK scheme as "dependent territories"? Were they put for ward as "overseas provinces" of Portugal or some such category, they would fail to qualify for the UK scheme. See also Para 14, last two sentences Paras 7 and 25: Section (ii) of para 7 mentions UK interest in supporting Fortuguese candidature as a beneficiary. This was true of the early history of the GPS, as we had some interest in sharing the EFTA burden among other donors. But we have long ceased to offer the Portuguese any practical support in OECD discussion of beneficiaries, and it would therefore be misleading to leave in these references to Portugal. Parao 18:am Portugal as a beneficiary would be no economic burden on us, as she already has EFTA ac- cess to our market. Turkey is clearly qualified by all objective economic criteria as a beneficiary. Never- theless, we have no alternative but to exclude both from the UK GPS, as the EEC have done from theirs. If in fact the EEC choose to include the four OECD devel- oping countries between now and next summer, then we should be prepared to follow suit. But until such time, we must exclude them all. It would be more invic ious to allow two of them in than to keep all of them out, as the former course would simply increase the degree of economic discrimination against the unlucky candidates.
Para 19: There is some inconsistency in our inclusion of Malta (like Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey, a member of UNCTAD Group B) as a Commonwealth country while excluding Portugal, which is a member of EFTA. However, as we have in fact assured the Maltese that they are to be included in our GPS, and they have used this argument to press their candidature on the EEC (see
), we are rather stuck with the "in-
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consistency, which we trust will be overlooked.
Para 22: If we exclude the "problem" beneficiaries of the Mediterranean on the grounds of "burden-sharing" and their exclusion by the EEC (and certainly in due course by the USA), we can under no circumstances in- clude countries like Cuba and Mongolia which are also excluded by the EEC and USA. The fact that they would be no great economic burden is irrelevant. To have Cuba in and Turkey out would be wholly unjustified and politically indefensible.
Para 25: For reasons given above, delete "and of Por- tugal in second sentence, and delete "Cuba and Mon-
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