T
CP 6/26
CONFIDENTIAL
RQ Braithwaite Esq EID (E)
F CO
London SW1
RECEIVED REGISTRY No.52
- 5 AUG1974
Ente
"HR/==C-
BRITISH EMBASSY PARIS
6510
138
2/vi
30 July 1974
8
124
Dens Rodnie,
HONG KONG AND THE COMMUNITY'S GSP
HFILIL 6/5481
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nothing.
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In your letter of 25 June to Peter Unwin in Bonn you asked posts to arrange for Patrick Dodge to make representations in Community capitals. did so here on 25 July and I have reported the outcome in our telno 838. should now like to add some rather more general reflections and hope that I may be forgiven if, in doing so, I stray a little off my proper beat, and on to delicate constitutional ground.
2.
I understand from Dodge that before the presentation of the Hong Kong memorandum to the Commission, and his tour of Community capitals, were decided upon there was a certain amount of debate in London about the manner in which these matters might best be handled. In particular, the question was how much should be done by the representatives of the UK Government, and how much by those of the ilong Kong Government. On the basis of our experience here I am quite sure that your decision, namely that we should provide covering support while the Hong kong representatives should make the detailed running, was correct.
3.
On practical grounds it was right because in discussion with an expert as competent as Mlle Guyot only someone very familiar with this complex range of subjects could have carried the arguments far enough to draw her out into
No brief, however good, could have speculative thinking about the future. enabled an Embassy representative (certainly not me at any rate) to achieve so
much.
4.
My main motive in writing to you, however, is that I find in this an important point in relation to UK negotiating credit in the Community.
Had the presentation been made by the United Kingdom alone it might well have been too clearly identified with supposed UK needs, and not enough with ilong Kong needs. It might in fact have been seen simply as another instance of the United Kingdom
By letting the long forming up to seck changes in the Accession arrangements. Kong representatives put their arguments direct we increased the chances that the trade problems involved will be looked at strictly on their merits.
CONFIDENTIAL
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