CODE 18-77
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Reference.
اش
Mr F H Brown
NTD
a
Nothing for arts comment. -20 HKG 340/1
DEFINITION OF UK NATIONAL FOR EC PURPOSES
1.
Your minute of 14 October.
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(21)
X
Set
2. The response to your minute from other departments shows preference for (or, at worst, no objection to) your option C ie to widen the present draft Declaration to cover, as desired by the Gibraltar Government, all who will become BDTC by connection with Gibraltar. I am sure this is right and, provided we can assure our Community partners that the increase in the total number of British nationals for EC purposes this will cause is insignifi- cant (as I understand is the case), I would not expect this to lead to any difficulties for us in having the Declaration accepted by the Community (Mrs Denza might like to comment on this).
3. The real problem arises over the issue of definition of 'the Gibraltar connection'. I agree entirely with Mr Burrows on this point (see attached copy of his minute of 19 October to Mr Hill) that the Community are likely to react far more favourably to a simple text, as proposed in para 1 of his minute, than they are to an involved text, which, if the previous minuting is anything to go by, will need to be even longer and more elaborate than any of those already proposed.
4.
The stumbling block seems to be the inclusion of the word 'qualifying'. If we could obtain departmental agreement to the omission of this term, the draft could go forward immediately. Whatever the arguments were for its inclusion in the first place (and my files do not make this clear), there is now a strong argument, in view of the difficulties which have since come to light, for looking at it again. If we insist on its inclusion, the consequences are likely to be:-
a)
b)
c)
thantve
we cannot meet Gibraltar's requests in its entirety, and
leave Ministers open to criticism (which will be difficult to refute) over the excluded categories; or
زنان
the definition of the 'Gibraltar connection' becomes so
complex as to be virtually unintelligible, and will incur the wrath of our Community partners; or
in trying to square the circle, we end up with a mixture
of a) and b) and get the worst of both worlds.
لسم للسلام
20 October 1982
cc: (with refs) Mrs Denza
P A Heald
European Community Dept (Internal)
Mr Spreckley
(without refs)
Mr Culver, SED
Mr Burrows
Mr Chamberlain Mr Cambridge, MVD
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Mr Holmes, CPO Mr McQuade, HKGD Mr Hickson, FID
Mr Hill, Legal Advisers