VURE EDEN DIAD
to satisfaction on the remaining problems, especially agreement on the figures, therefore, the UK will be prepared to give the Commission the necessary authority to begin the bilateral negotiations.
7.
The Commission have already given some publicity to their approach. They have emphasised that the Community will attempt to give 6% growth over the totality of their textile imports to all the supplying countries concerned. We understand the
desirability of such a presentation to help in the bilateral negotiations but it must be underlined that it is unfortunate
for our domestic textile industries. It sounds too much like
a continuation of the existing MFA arrangements. The real nature of the Commission's proposals therefore needs to be explained to Community industrial opinion. This Council might
therefore agree the lines of a reassuring public statement which Member States can use with their domestic opinion. It might be on the following lines:
"The Council agreed the broad lines of the negotiating directives for the forthcoming bilateral negotiations with the Community's main textile suppliers. The Community intend to negotiate agreements with comprehensive coverage and with quotas growth rates verying inversely with the degree of import penetration of individual products on the Community market. For the most sensitive products, the Community's aim will be to stabilise import penetration
at 1976 levels.
The Council also agreed that, if the results of the
bilateral negotiations proved incomplete or unsatisfactory unilateral arrangements for textile imports would be established as from 1 January 1978."
3
CONFIDENTIAL
/BACKGROUND