CONFILE ITAL
negotiating table. We would be in trouble with our Community
partners if they became aware of this situation.
Contact between UKREP and the Commission
4.
For the sensitive products for which quotas are to be
established in the forthcoming bilateral negotiations, the Community
have already agreed internal global ceilings above which the totality
of individual country quotas for those products will not be allowed
to rise. Ministers, including the Prime Minister, attach the
greatest importance to the UK being able to keep its imports of those
products within the global ceilings. The making of a special case for
Hong Kong would therefore involve more generous treatment for her at
the expense of other suppliers. Ministers have already agreed that ve
should do our best to ensure that a special case is made, still within
these ceilings, for the poorest developing countries, e.g. India and
Pakistan, and we have told the Commission and our Community partners
that these countries ought to receive somewhat less harsh treatment
where possible in view of their relative poverty.
5.
(i)
To tell the Commission now that we might also want to make
a special case for Hong Kong would lead to difficulties in three areas:
The Commission would not understand why the UK, which all along,
with the French, has taken the lead in demanding stringent
protection, should suddenly be asking for more generous treatment
to the Community's largest single textile supplier. They would
see no way, without raising the global ceilings, in which Hong
Kong, as well as India and Pakistan, could be given more generous
(ii)
treatment.
The Department of Trade and the Department of Industry would
vigorously oppose any such approach because they would see it
as carrying a severe risk of eventually exceeding the global
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