TNAG-0132-FCO40-168-Tariff-preferences-for-developing-countries-1969 — Page 39

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If the French were to go along, the Belgians and Italians would follow with

Tran added that the French were also somewhat worried

no great difficulty.

that, if Hong Kong were to be excluded on the grounds that it was a

"territory", the same treatment would be meted out by, e.g., the U.K., to

As regards the Commission's attitude, Tran

thir own territories.

mentioned in passing that Di Martino had been the only senior official who

had consistently pushed Hong Kong's claims.

As

5. Mr. Goldsmith replied that HMG would certainly be placed in a very

difficult position politically if Hong Kong's claim to developing status

were not admitted. We had all along recognised that it might be difficult

for the Community, and perhaps some other countries, to permit Hong Kong to benefit from unlimited preferential treatment and that some safeguard or

adjustment procedure would be required, He had mentioned to Di Martino that

we would not object to any reasonable procedure along these lines being

introduced provided that it was, formally at least, non-discriminatory in its application; and we had had in mind something like the tariff quota

cum adjustment mechanism which had been advocated by the late Kojeve.

regards the French, he was grateful for Tran's advice and we would do what

we could with them. One argument that could be used was that, as a member

of the old OC Special Group, the French had accepted the self-election

principle for beneficiary countries so they were in a sense more committed to

this than were countries who were not members of that Group. Tran agreed and

suggested that, within the French Delegation, we should concentrate on

Mlle. Guyot and M. Sedouy. I added that one factor the Commission and

those Member States who wanted the U.K. to enter the Community should bear in

mind was that the exclusion of Hong Kong from a preferences scheme would,

by its very nature, add one more difficulty in the way of our entry.

Mr. Tran said that this was certainly a point that could be made with the Italians and the Belgians and he would do so; we all agreed, of course,

that it could not be used with the French.

6.

Tran then went on to outline in somewhat more detail his ideas on how

Hong Kong might be accommodated. The Commission had prepared a "list of

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