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The European Community
16
The UK's first task will be to persuade the EC to embrace the above
objectives.
The eventual mandate for Community participation in a new Round
falls to be determined by the EC Council of Ministers. Trade policy is in the
main a matter of exclusive Community competence: the Community negotiates as a
single entity in the GATT with the Commission as its spokesman. Largely because
of hesitations on the part of France, doubts remains as to whether the Community
Will be prepared to press hard on agricultural trade and on services. But services
are subject to slightly different considerations: exclusive Community competence
does not apply.
The Position of the US
17 US objectives closely resemble those of the UK. Certainly UK and US thinking
on a new round is closer to that of the US than to France and certain other
Community countries. The US has been particularly adamant about the inclusion of
services. The US also seeks specific disciplines for high technology products
and supports the GATT Director General's advocacy of tighter rules to deal with
subsidies having trade-distorting effects. We are sceptical about the need to
single out the high technology sector and doubt if the GATT could ever produce
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totally water-tight rules for subsidies.
The US has recently shown signs of
increasing frustration with the operation of the multilateral trading system
through GATT. hinting instead at the possibility of bilateral or "plurilateral"
trade negotiations among "like minded" trading countries. The UK will use its
influence to try to persuade the US against abandoning the GATT or concentrating
its efforts to secure liberalisation outside it: a new Round offers the best
prospect of balanced progress on a genuinely multilateral basis.
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