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Migration & Visa Department
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Year Dena's Дений
VISA ABOLITION AGREEMENTS:
NETHERLANDS
16 January 1986
ним осо
RECEIVE
1 0 MAR 1936
OFSK C DEX
Setor Patin
Preparations for the debate on the Hong Kong Nationality Order have brought up again the question of visa abolition agreements.
You will well recall that the approach which the Netherlands Government made in 1984 to review the 1960 visa abolition agreement, specifically in relation to the varieties of British nationality to which it extends, rests with the invitation you extended to the Dutch in October to join in a preliminary exchange of views. We had in mind the need to resist redefinition of the scope of the agreement with damaging restrictions.
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I thought it worth recording to clear my own mind if nothing else that we are now presumably moving towards the time when we shall ourselves have to take a positive initiative in the opposite sense to that sought by the Dutch, namely to extend the agreement to cover BN (0)s. Given the approach the Dutch have already made the timing and tactics of our own approach will need particularly careful judgment. A t some point I must report to Ministers here on the immigration implications of the issues raised by the Dutch. I had envisaged doing so in the context of our preliminary discussions. I believe that soundings have already been taken on the acceptability of BN (0) passports with third countries, though I do not know whether this includes the Dutch. To what sort of time-scale will formal approaches on extending visa abolition agreements be undertaken? Does it now look as though we may have to reopen the Dutch agreement before they have responded to our invitation to preliminary discussions on their earlier approach?
I am sending copies of this letter to Derek Partridge NTD, Tony Galsworthy Hong Kong Department and to John Lyon here.
You
Richard
R J FRIES