TNAG-0386-FCO40-432-Exports-of-non-cotton-textiles-from-Hong-Kong-to-the-EEC-1973 — Page 27

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CONFIDENTIAL

into some Member States at levels that cannot

be described as disruptive. The BTC urges us to accept some illiberal aspects of Community policy in exchange for concessions on free circulation.

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THE GATT TEXTILES STUDY.

Progress towards an agreed

EEC line has been fair, and the Commission can be encouraged

to present the consensus in as vigorous a manner as possible,

without reference to internal policy differences. At least

in this forum, the objectives of developing a reasonably

liberal Community policy and of achieving a new international

agreement can be kept separate from the objective of

removing the disparities in outlook and in practice between

the Member States.

3 POSSIBLE STEPS FORWARD. We should do all we can to

encourage, if necessary push, the Commission (whose business

it is) to table some specific proposals. As we have so

often said (e.g. to the French) we can accept that free

circulation will not be achieved in a day if there is a

meaningful programme for achieving it in the end. (But

of course we want it as quickly as possible.)

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Among the routes to free circulation are the following

(not mutually exclusive):

а.

the proposals in the UK document of July 1972 'Textile Policy in an enlarged EEC' for the progressive scaling up of individual Members' quotas to the level of the most generous, or the

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