TNAG-0384-FCO40-430-Trade-relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-the-EEC-1973 — Page 115

in the UK market, on top of our generous quota provisions, will increase the already marked disparity between our liberality and the effective protectionism of most our partners, at a time when it must be clear to all that we are anxious to reduce it.

GSP for textiles cannot and must not be considered in isolation from the fundamental issues of textile trade policy, especially the need for progress towards the genuine common market which surely we all recognise we must aim to achieve.

The UK has made proposals for progress towards a unified Community market for textiles, especially insofar as this objective affects the Community's policy on future bilateral agreements with supplying countries. It is our intention to hand these proposals to you today, so that they may be considered after this meeting with those other parts of the Commission concerned with these problems.

We recognise that the proposals that have been made to us by the Commission about our involvement in the arrangements for generalised preferences for textiles relate only to 1974; we appreciate also the Commissions insistence that we are only talking about 1974 and that many things may have changed by the time we come to discuss any arrangements for the years after 1974. But there can be no doubt in any one's mind that what is done in 1974 must inevitably affect what happens thereafter. We cannot therefore treat the Commission's proposal as an individual, isolated, self- contained matter having no connection with any other matters affecting textile trade.

Our position is quite clear. We have made proposals concerning textile policy in the enlarged Community; these proposals include methods and a timetable for the transition from the present division of so-called Community quotas into Member State's shares based on past performance to a regime of true Community quotas. In short we have urged that the Community should lay down a programme for movement towards the goal of a unified and expanding market for textiles.

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