CODE 19 77
Members of the Textile Working Party
Reference
102
2
14/1x
TEXTILES:
AND GSP
FUTURE EEC BILATERAL AGREEMENTS WITH THIRD COUNTRIES
We have a Treaty obligation to align to the EEC's existing GSP for textiles on 1 January 1974. In July the EEC Commission proposed that the UK should align to the scheme by accepting a share of the tariff quotas equal in size to that of Germany, while Denmark and Ireland would accept smaller shares, and the Six would increase their shares by adding 5 per cent to the 1973 figures, as had been done in the past. We have said that the proposal present serious difficulties for us, and reserved our position.
The next meeting of the GSP Working Group in Brussels is on
12 September. At that meeting we will be pressed to state our positin clearly on and preferably to agree to the Commission's proposal.
At a meeting of EU(0) on 4 September DTI was authorised to "have a go" at resisting the Commission's proposal while tabling counter proposals concerning our over-riding objectives in the field of textiles policy in the enlarged Community.
At the last meeting of the Brussels Working Group on Trade Questions (Textiles) in July, the Commission tabled a working document about future EEC bilateral agreements on textiles with third countries. This document, for varying reasons, was rejected by all delegations; in rejecting the Commission document, we said that the UK would be putting forward concrete proposals for progress towards a unified Community market for textiles, especially insofar as this objective affected the Community's policy on future bilateral agreements. It was agreed that member states should put in comments and
proposals.
/At the