THE SIX
SIR,—Your 'Portrait of the Week' must by its very nature contain simplifications, bin the sentence 'the Six nations of the European Common Market put up their tariff walls further and reduced tariffs in- side it' cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.
The setting up of the Common Market involves the adoption by the Six of a common external tariff (preferable, by the way, to the emotive 'tariff wall'): what happened on January I was that the Six took the first steps towards bringing their national tariffs into line with this external tariff, which incidentally was reduced by 20 per cent. from the level originally calculated before ever being adopted at all. For France and Italy this process means the reduction Of the duties on most items in their national tariffs, and this is also true for Belgium. Only Germany and the Netherlands have in fact to increase their duties on many goods, and since this is being done in stages the increases arc in fact very slight indeed. Thus (i) it cannot be said that the Six increased their tariff walls 'further' since they have not increased them before, and (ii) it is only some members of the EEC who have increased duties at all, others in fact bring- ing them down.—Yours faithfully,
J. R. LAMBERT
II rue Fernand d'Huart, Bonnevoie. Grand Duchy • of Luxembourg
Previous page
