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consensus the Commission stated that while they would
recommend the Council of Ministers to accept the'
protocol for the time being, continued participation by
the EC in the MFA beyond end-1982 would depend on the
negotiation of satisfactory new bilateral agreements
with the individual supplier countries concerned.
These negotiations will take place during the course of
1982 since the EC's existing bilaterals under MFA 2 đo
not expire until end December. The reason why the
Commission has entered this reservation is that while
the MFA 3 extension protocol includes references to all the important points in the negotiating mandate agreed by the July, November and December Councils (in parti- cular cutbacks on the dominants, a surge mechanism and
low growth) it is not in itself sufficient to guarantee
that it will be possible to achieve EC objectives in
the negotiations on the bilateral agreements.
4.
"
It would be best to avoid being drawn into specu-
lation about what might happen if the Community (by far the world's biggest importer of low-cost textiles) were to be placed in a position of having to consider carrying out its threat to withdraw from the MFA.
point to stress is the importance of the supplier countries helping to avoid such a situation by making a
success of the bilateral negotiations.
The
But the fact is
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/that