CONFIDENTIAL
B
75/5
Note of Meeting with Mr. Tran, Commission of European Communities,
to discuss Preferences
I at last managed to see Mr. Tran during the morning of
21 May and we had a long discussion in a quiet corner of the
Palais.
New Version of Sensitive List
2. Tran started by saying that he had received orders from his superiors in the Commission to study in depth (au fond) not just the technical aspects but also the political aspects
of the inclusion of dependent territories in the Community's
offer of a generalised system of preferences, In practice, this meant essentially to study the position of Hong Kong and
Timor Macao. He had, in particular, Leen told to examine the
conditions under which Hong ng could be included in the
scheme. He added that he had been drawing up a new con- solidated list of sensitive products and he passed over the enclosed sheets of figures. The figures show imports into the EEC in 1967 from developing countries (with Hong Kong given separately) and the calculation cf quotas. In each
case the figures without brackets show the position if Hong Kong were not included and the figures in brackets the
position if she were included. He also handed me a note of
the meeting of the EEC Working Group on Preferences held on 18 April (1.e. hefore the Second Session of the UNCTAD Preferences Committee). Copies of this are also enclosed.
3. Tran added that his next job was to go through these
figures again, to add figures for Timor Macao, and to work out what the position would look like on varicus hypotheses in the case of the more difficult products vis-à-vis Hong Kong (e.g.
complete exclusion or giving Hong Kong 10, 20 or 30% of the Cuota). He went on to say that this work was now being taken
CONFIDENTIAL
/seriously
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.