TNAG-2953-FCO40-4230-Hong-Kong-European-Community-visa-regime-for-British-Nationa-1993 — Page 83

Mr Sindon, MVD

Reference

1961

Ak.

11KD 345/3

ADE

:

HONG KONG: VISA FREE ACCESS TO! EUROPE. FOR_BITCS-AND~‍BN (0) S

1.

I understand that you and Mr Neale (B2 Division, Home Office) will represent the UK at the Visa Sub-Group on 7 September. Mr Lewty has explained that you are on leave this week, but will be in the office on 6 September prior to your trip to Brussels. In your absence I contacted Mr Neale to go over our concerns about Hong Kong in the context of the EC wide visa regime to be established under Maastricht 100C. I also went over Hong Kong's response to suggestions (at the May Ad Hoc meeting) that Hong Kong might be partly accountable for an increase in the number of immigrants coming to Europe from China by providing a staging post.

2.

Mr Neale was familiar with our concerns and with the evidence of an impressive track record by Hong Kong in combating illegal entry with tough and efficient immigration controls. On the immigration point, he said that this was a matter to be dealt with in the Ad Hoc meeting, rather than in the Visa Sub-group. I note that you have put the record straight with the Home Office (your letter to Mr Sweet of 2 August). I should like to be able to reassure Hong Kong that we have done the maximum to get the message home on this one. Can we establish from Mr Sweet that the Home Office have followed through and that EC colleagues have been briefed? Will the Home Office representative at the next Ad Hoc meeting (Mr Rawsthorne?) make a statement? (Do we send a representative too?). As I have discussed with Mr Lewty, we are keen to impress upon EC colleagues that fears about clandestine Chinese immigration via Hong Kong are ill founded and should not cloud thinking on visa policy towards Hong Kong. We are talking about BDTCS and BN (O)s - people who have had to go through the procedures necessary to acquire a British passport. We are not talking about a mass of unscreened (Chinese) individuals.

3. I still feel that we should take the initiative in briefing member countries on the importance as we see it of preserving visa free access for this group to Europe. appreciate, that if we want to press the political argument, the PoCo machinery might best fit the bill and I shall explore with ECD (I) how best to pitch our message. But lobbying individual countries in the margins of the sub-group meeting next week and on 11 October could still be valuable. I would be most grateful for anything you can do to get over our

min.visafree.NAT

JEB

CODE 18-77