TNAG-0302-FCO40-338-Effects-of-tariffs-on-imports-of-cotton-textiles-to-UK-from--1971 — Page 111

CONFIDENTIAL

Add after para 24 of draft brief

25.

Adaptation to EEC arrangements is also

relevant to the question of duty-free quotas.

To Ministers were to decide that some form of

quantitative control on cotton textiles should

be re-imposed in 1972, the developing

countries' sense of grievance would undoubtedly

be somewhat reduced were the arrangements to

incorporate duty-free quotas within the overall

quantitative restrictions. DTI consider,

only to reject, this in paragraph 39 of their

submission, arguing not only that Lancashire

would not like it but that it would involve a

D

good deal of "counter-marching" on entry into

the EEC in the process of conforming to the

Community's Generalised Preference Scheme

arrangements on cotton textiles. It is true

that a considerable degree of revision would

have to take place on adaptation to the

Community's GPS, but

(i) this is true of all our GPS arrangements,

since our scheme is based on duty-free entry

subject to an apparatus of safeguards, while

the Community's is based on duty-free quotas;

(ii) we do not plan to adapt to the EEC's GPS

until one year after entry (ie 1 January 1974);

and

(iii) the adoption of duty-free quotas on all

textiles would at least reduce the discrepan-

cies between our and the EEC's GPS arrangements

on textiles in general.

CONFIDENTIAL

./2.