CONFIDENTIAL
BACKGROUND
20
The background information on Hong Kong trade, on the
1961/63 negotiations and on the likely attitude of the Six
contained in paragraphs 3-8 of EURO(67)97 of 7 July remains valid.
The European Commission's Report
In addition, the European Commission's Report on our
application has become available since the last round of talks,
and this contains several clues on the Commission's likely attitude
to Hong Kong. (The Governments of the Six will not necessarily agree
with what the Commission say, But this is bound to have significant
influence on them):-
3.
The Report contains only one sentence referring directly to
Hong Kong. In the section on 'The Wider Community and Third
Countries' it is briefly stated that 'a special problem arises with
respect to imports from Hong Kong'. The context is no real hely
in detecting just what the Commission are getting at, but it would
be prudent to assume that they mean ↑ a problem for the Community'
and not a problem for Hong Kong'.
4.
'
The Report recommends that the transitional periods should
be the same for industry and for agriculture, and goes on to say
that 'the best way of maintaining a certain degree of unity of the
internal market in the wider Community would be for the starting
date, the duration and the rhythm of development of the transitional
period to be the same for all the acceding countries and for as few
systems as possible to be exceptions to this'. It does not,
therefore, look as if the Commission will be favourably disposed
towards the revival of the concept of 'soft decalage'.
5.
The section on the abolition of impediments to intra-
Community trade contains the following passages:
The elimination of impediments to trade, even when done
progressively, could lead to certain difficulties in
'sensitive sectors' which were dealt with separately under
the Kennedy negotiations....
The very wide divergences.
CONFIDENTIAL
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