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contrary to the Summit Communiques call for
improvements to the Community's GSP. In any event,
in 1971 FCO Ministers (including Mr Royle) agreed
that we should not adopt this course.
OPTION 3
14 In our negotiations on alignment with the
Community so far we have argued that the whole
question of textiles should be taken out of the GSP
context and considered instead in the wider context
of Community textile policy together with such
issues as greater liberalisation, larger quotas for
those member countries not currently as generous as
we are and free circulation. A natural result of
this could be the removal of textiles from the
Community's GSP altogether. The proposal has
however received no support in Brussels so far.
Official Committee on Europe have decided to abandon
this policy early enough to permit us to make the
necessary arrangements to align on 1 January 1974.
It would also leave unsolved the question of foot-
wear.
OPTION 44
The
15. Very much the fall back position if all else
fails would be to seek to lower the butoirs ie the
limits within the duty-free quota available to any
one country. It would not avoid the major political
aim of removing discrimination against Hong Kong but
would lessen the advantages to her competitors. From
a liberal trading point of view there are objections
to proposing it.
CONCLUSION
16. Mr Royle will wish to consider the problem and,
with the Secretary of State, decide between the
opposing interests, in this context, of our
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