>
}
may only be so because only France is maintaining restrictions
on them;
there does not appear to be any great pressure
from the Community as a whole on individual Member States
to remove remaining import restrictions.
6. A revision of Regulation 1025/70 on import policy
(one of the Common Commercial Policy instruments) is now
being discussed by the Commission. This contains provisions
for the introduction of supervision at national level of
imports of items from Hong Kong. The items are in fact those
on which France is maintaining restrictions. This may be a
face saving move on behalf of France to enable liberalisation
to proceed and the Common Commercial Policy to appear to
make progress.
7. France continues to invoke Article 115 to refuse Community
treatment to imports from the Five when the products
originate in Hong Kong. Germany has recently complained
about the continued use of Article 115 for this purpose
so long after the completion of the Customs Union.
Line to Tako
8. Hong Kong's motive in raising this rather specialised
issue with Mr Rippon is presumably to try to get some
commitment from him that HMG will press the Colony's case
forcibly against these restrictions once we are in the EEC.
While we can express general sympathy with Hong Kong, it
would be premature and undesirable at this stage to give any
precise commitment about the line we would propose to adopt
or the level at which this matter should be appropriately
pursued in Brussels or in Paris. It is not yet clear when
the Community will be ready to formally discuss the revision
of Regulation 1025/70 with us. The degree of priority that
we give to this particular issue must depend on other UK
No comments yet.
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