RESTRICTED
NR
If you
Where we go next on the monitoring road is not apparent to me. If you have views we should be glad to hear them. We have seen the letter of 17 September from Nash in Customs to your predecessor saying that Customs have difficulty in monitoring these imports to establish to what extent they are being declared as originating in places other than those covered by VRAS. wish to return to the charge with Customs DOT would support you. We understand the Hong Kongers may have suggested to Atkinson that a method of strengthening our control would be to require certificates of origin, which requirement would pose no problem for HK. CRE1 is considering whether our Community obligations would permit this, if it were thought worth doing. It apparently can be done as a measure of national surveillance under Council Regulation 926/1979. However, some kind of Community blessing would have to be obtained under that regulation. But I do not know if we could simply impose the requirement in some other way without the need for any Community sanction. There are no doubt other snags with certificates of origin such as the Customs resources hurdle and the scope for frustrating the certificates by sending the goods to the UK on free circulation: I am told that the Commission frowns on Cs of 0 on such trade as a measure of equivalent effect to import restrictions.
If you would like to discuss any of this DOT is at your disposal, though Alan Dunning and I are away for the next 2 weeks.
Your suicesly
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T MUIR
cc A Dunning CRE2
FA Neal CREl
bc Mr Chick FCO
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