G.F
4.
3
Mr. Murray said that the EEC's delays in negotiating bilateral agreements did not surprise him since it was extremely difficult to get complicated negotiating directives accepted by 9 countries. H.E. said that Mr. Jordan was not complaining about the delays but was saying that the consequences of the delays could not be blamed on the MFA. Mr. Jordan said that Hong Kong appreciated the reasons for the delays but he felt that the EEC would not get much sympathy from other suppliers if it now said that the MFA had to be modified because it had been so inefficient, in using it.
5.
H.E. then said that the question now was how to tell HMG that Mr. Meacher's statement was not supported by facts and wondered what the DOT/DOI's counter-arguments would be to Mr. Jordan's paper. H.E. said that HG's complaints about the MFA clearly did not apply to Hong Kong; and that perhaps the DOT/DOI's answer would be that the UK was not, talking about Hong Kong but about others.
6.
Mr. Murray thought that Hong Kong had a very strong argument, but he took H.E.'s point that if Mr. Meacher had been briefed to take the line that he did in stating HMG's policy in Parliament, there must have been some reason for it. He said that obviously the time had come for hin and Mr. Stewart to exercise their functions of looking after Hong Kong's interests and the question now was how. He would like to use Mr. Jordan's paper with his Minister on the basis that he had discussed it in depth with H.E. and Mr. Jordan; that this was the situation and that it provided the arguments for Hong Kong's case.
7.
Mr. Stewart said that he had been present at Mr. Jordan's meeting with Whitehall officials in February 1977 and had been highly unimpressed by the performance of DOT and DOI officials. Therefore it was not inconceivable that some of the arguments which Mr. Meacher used had been based on their advice. But given the quality of these officials, Mr. Jordan's long and detailed rebuttal could be counter- productive, he felt.
8.
H.E. said that as Hong Kong saw it. HMG was adopting a position which was likely to lead to an impasse in Geneva, and which would not be in the interest of either Hong Kong or the UK. He asked whether it would help if he wrote to the Secretary of State for Trade, Mr. Edmund Dell, along these lines and to say that he was worried about the situation; and copied his letter to Lord Goronwy-Roberts. He felt that the matter must now be taken up at ministerial level since officials were bound by Mr. Heacher's statement. Mr. Murray said that it would be useful and asked H.E. if he could see the letter in draft.
9.
It was then agreed the matter should be further discussed between Mr. Stewart and Mr. Jordan, when they met again on 28 March, before a decision was made on the course of action to be followed.
During this later discussion, a suggestion that Mr. Jordan might write to Sir Peter Carey (Permanent Secretary, DOI) was also considered. The Governor subsequently agreed that this should be the next step.
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