Appendix A.
TEXTILES: FUTURE EEC BILATERAL AGREEMENTS WITH THIRD COUNTRIES
Statement by the United Kingdom
1. Introduction This statement takes as its point of departure Council Document S/944/73 (COMER 163) of 27 July 1973, which records the meeting on 18 July of the Working Group on Trade Questions (Textiles) and has annexed to it the Commission working document which was tabled on that occasion. Following
further study of these papers by officials in London, the
United
Kingdom is now in a position to fulfil its promise of concrete proposals for progress towards a unified Community market for textiles, especially insofar as this objective affects the Community's policy on future bilateral agreements.
2.
Multilateral (GATT) Agreement All future bilateral arrange-
ments must be considered in the framework of this new international
enabling instrument. Although the terms of it are not yet known, certain assumptions can be made at least provisionally, and it would be wrong to consider any line of policy that does not accord with the provisions expected to be contained in the new agreement.
3.
Classification of countries It is certain that the concept of market disruption will be central to the new agreement, and that quantitative restrictions on imports, whether bilaterally agreed or unilaterally imposed, will need to be justified in each case by reference to actual or threatened disruption. It follows from this, in our view, that it would be wiser to avoid classification of supplying countries into "super-competitive", "developing" or other groups, since these labels appear to pre-judge the issue of the need and justification for restrictions on a case-by-case basis. In paragraph 5 we nevertheless suggest a pragmatic division of supplying countries into two broad groups, since the Community policy on future bilateral agreements may be different, in the case of those countries with which an EEC cotton agreement exists under the LTA, from its policy in other cases.
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