TNAG-1394-FCO40-1866-Future-of-Hong-Kong-interest-from-other-countries-1985 — Page 16

CONFIDENTIAL

III

a)

Practical Circumstances and Objectives

The Present Environment

Note several features of environment which may be

propitious for British aims and should be exploited.

Eg:

improvement in both French and German attitudes to

Britain as a "European", since resolution of the

Budget problem (and in light of our positive

attitude and improved tactics in other European

fora such as WEU);

developments in France: i) Mitterrand's wish to

make Franco-German axis less cloying and

exclusive, ii) general more

cooperative/Atlanticist trend in French policy

(which should reduce areas of basic Anglo-French

disagreement);

Germany's need for friends:

continuing

weakness/incoherence of FRG Community policy,

vulnerability over Deutschland politik/

"revanchism" issue, risk of losing ground in

East-West dialogue; and recent prominence of

defence/security issues which brings Britain's

contribution into clearer focus (but also

highlights need to maintain it!);

nature of the European agenda for the next

few years.

High proportion of issues which:

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