TNAG-0386-FCO40-432-Exports-of-non-cotton-textiles-from-Hong-Kong-to-the-EEC-1973 — Page 29

CONFIDENTIAL

interests

-

i.e. leading to greater UK imports were

discussed in the July 1972 policy paper. These would have

to be carefully built into any schemes and timetables which

we might propose. The main point is the need to ensure

that, so long as Member States' shares or maxima exist,

imports from restricted sources via another Member State

count against the share of the final recipient and not against

the share of the "channel" country.

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U.K. BARGAINING POSITION.

Within the textile context

the only way for us to force the pace of progress seems to be

to sell as clearly as possible the concessions our partners

or the Commission may want out of us. This paragraph

explores some areas in which we might, by agreeing to be

marginally more or less restrictive or logical than we would

ideally like to be, buy some part of our other objective.

a.

Agreements with principal suppliers after September/December 1973. We have only aligned to the Community's seven cotton agreements in the

sense that we are doing our own thing bilaterally with these suppliers this year. Discussion of mandates for the Commission to negotiate new agreements will be the major business of the Council Working Group on Textile Trade Questions in the second half of this year. Hong Kong is already restless. The Commission, and perhaps

a majority of Members, are likely to press for concessions for the sake of uniformity on categorisation and on coverage. The former could be unpopular with both industry and overseas suppliers and administratively tiresome, but it

is not an important issue of principle. The latter would extend protection (e.g. to knitted cottons) where not strictly necessary, but our

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