J
PM/81/9
PRIME MINISTER
1.
CONFIDENTIAL
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Passports
EZATI
cc Ps
135/LBS PS/MN Love Ps/ Chef Clark
Lord Bridgs
Mr Franklin (.0. Mr Donald
Mr Hannay Mr Adoni
Mr Jones MTD,
Mr Money
HKED
Governor has sens
in progress
You will recall that work is in progress in Brussels
on the implementation of the decision taken at the European
Summit at the end of 1974 that the passports of EC Member
States should have a common format. I last minuted to you
about this on 15 April 1980,
2.
Since then, substantial progress has been made in
Brussels and most of the technical difficulties have been
resolved. In particular, it should now be possible to reach agreement that we need not make the change to the European
format until we are ready to move to the new ICAO recommended
format which permits machine reading. This means that we
could decide in our own time when to introduce the new
passport. The subject will be on the agenda of the Foreign
Affairs Council on 17 March.
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1
3.
I have discussed the issues with Willie Whitelaw and
I attach a short paper with which he agrees, which suggests
how we might now proceed. The key point in our proposals is
that we would not accept any firm date for introduction of the
common format passport; its timing would be linked to the timing
of the introduction of the new ICAO format and this will
depend on the studies now in progress. As I have said, I believe this will be acceptable to other Member States, though
/they will
CONFIDENTIAL
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