TNAG-0045-FCO40-81-Britain-s-entry-into-EEC-effect-on-trade-with-Hong-Kong-1967 — Page 116

CONFIDENTIAL

OUTWARD TELEGRAM

FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (The Secretary of State)

TO HONG KONG (Sir D. Trench)

H631

H23B6/13.

Copy is the reguland

Common

On

ow

Market-14m. /or

9/5-

10

Cypher

Sent 8th May 1967. 2230Z

LAST

REF.

CONFIDENTIAL No.874 FRAME

NEX

REF.

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Consultations with the Commonwealth on E.E.C.

You will have seen that the Prime Minister in his statement in Parliament on 2 May said "it is our hope that the negotiations will be followed through swiftly and will relate to the small number of really important issues which have been identified through our recent discussions". He instanced among these issues "highly important Commonwealth interests" for which it is our duty to seek safeguards in the negotiations.

20

We should, therefore, like to have preliminary consultations with Commonwealth Governments including those of the Dependent Territories as soon as possible. Thereafter, as the Prime Minister said in his statement, we will make special arrangements to keep in close consultation with Governments concerned as with our E.F.T.A. partners throughout the negotiations.

30 We do not think that it would be necessary or desirable to arrange a Commonwealth-wide meeting for consultation with Commonwealth Governments prior to the opening of negotiations, The main reason for this view is that Commonwealth interests are so diverse that we think it would be more expeditious to conduct the consultations bilaterally except perhaps in certain cases where some small groups of Commonwealth countries have similar interests.

4te Our hope is that our negotiations with E.E.C. may be shortened and simplified by reviving for the most part the provisional agreements of special concern to the Commonwealth which were worked out in 1962. As the Prime Minister said on 2 May

'a great deal of the work which went on before will be very helpful".

5.

No_provisional agreement on Hong Kong was reached in the 1961-63 negotiations. Our request for association under Part IV of the Rome Treaty was rejected by the Size We consider that it would be unrealistic in the forthcoming negotiations to reiterate this request. The arrangement which we had proposed and which was under consideration when the previous negotiations broke down was that the common external tariff should be applied to imports into Britain from Hong Kong over transitional periods subject to the proviso that the effect would be examined and remedial action taken if damage was being caused to Hong Kong.

6. We should be glad to know whether arrangements on these lines, if negotiable, would be acceptable to Hong Kong.

EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL DISTRIBUTION

CONFIDENTIAL