CONFIDENTIAL
3. It is essential, as the Commission regonise, that the bilateral negotiations be conducted with all possible despatch. The UK notes with satisfaction the Commission's commitment to
take unilateral action on 1 January 1978 if the results of the negotiations prove incomplete or unsatisfactory.
4. Naturally, like other delegations, the UK has particular points which will be raised in the discussions at Working Group
and COREPER level. The detailed annexes to the Commission's
mandate are all-important. Our experts will naturally need to pay the closest attention to the figures for the quotas to be granted for individual products to individual supplying countries. Like other Member States, we will have our own views on which
(Hong Kong, supplying countries should be treated more leniently and which Indiat
more harshly, bearing in mind, amongst other factors, the need Pakistan to differentiate between countries at different stages of wealth
and development. We shall want to pay particular attention to the growth rates which are to be applied to the different categories of textile products. In this context, we must underline that the UK industry faces particularly serious difficulties in the cotton sector. We would, in particular, find
it hard to contemplate any growth for cotton yarn.
5. In part II of its paper, the Commission has put forward a number of wide-reaching proposals eg. on industrial policy and the 1979 GSP, which will be connected with the new textile policy. We will give these careful study when the time comes but cannot be committed on them now. But now the Council and the
Commission have a lot to do and little time. We should concentrate on the immediate tasks: the negotiation of the bilaterals and
the future of the MFA.
6.
The Commission's logical and coherent approach looks a sensible way of achieving the Community's objectives. But it will only be at the end of the negotiating period, which we accept should be firmly set for 30 November, that the UK and the other Member States can judge whether it has succeeded.
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