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Mr Darroch
INDEX
Mr Jay
EC VISA POLICY AND HONG KONG
(77
1.
FROM: M O McLachlan
DATE: 18 August 1993
MUD 345/3
RECEIVE
27 AUG 1993
DESK OFFHOS INDEA
གས་
You invited my comments on Mr Rawsthorne's letter to
Mr Jay of 16 August.
2. I had actually cleared the text of my minute of 6 August in draft with B6 Division, Home Office, to make sure I had the facts of this complicated issue right.
3. Mr Rawsthorne has drawn the same conclusion as
ourselves; the way forward in the short term is to persuade other Member States not to include BDTC's and BN (0)s on an EC
common visa list. It is not clear when this will come to a
head. UKRep are exploring Commission thinking.
4. Mr Rawsthorne has presented clearly the Home Office view
that to argue against Hong Kong inclusion on a visa list on
thin legal grounds would be a mistake (for the very good
reasons stated in his paragraph 3) this was never in fact
envisaged by Legal Advisers who were merely identifying options. But this leaves us with the possible scenario alluded to in his last sentence; and at that point we may have to consider a way around the problem. (Mr Lewty, MVD,
has now minuted to Legal Advisers seeking clarification of
exactly what Article 100c demands).
5. Since the objective of this exercise was to focus
attention on possible pitfalls in future EC visa policy, to
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