§ MR. BOWLESI beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Governments of Norway and Belgium were invited to join in the recent declaration respecting the territorial status quo in the North Sea; if not, can he state the grounds upon which such invitations were withheld; and, if so, did either or each of these Governments decline to join in the declaration, and upon what grounds.
§ SIR EDWARD GREYThe negotiations for the North Sea Agreement were conducted by the German Government with the other states who are parties to the Agreement, and I cannot say whether any communications took place with the Belgian and Norwegian Governments. But the position of those two countries has already been the subject of previous arrangements.
§ MR. BOWLESI bog to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether in view of the Agreement recently come to by the British, French, German, Danish, Netherland, and Swedish Governments that, for the purposes of the declaration of those Governments on the 53 subject of the maintenance of the territorial status quo in the North Sea, that sea shall be considered to extend eastwards as far as its junction with the waters of the Baltic, he will state to the House in terms of latitude and longtitude where that junction is.
§ SIR EDWARD GREYFor the purposes of the recently concluded "status quo" Agreements, it is sufficient that the North Sea has been recognised as extending eastwards up to its junction with the waters of the Baltic, which ensures that the two instruments leave no intervening space between them, and no definition has been included in the North Sea Agreement.