§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent proposals have been received from the United States Government on the establishment of a multilateral co-operation council to control high technology export involving member countries of the COCOM group and states from the former Warsaw pact.
Mr. Douglas-HoggCOCOM countries have been considering how to respond to the collapse of the Warsaw pact and the break-up of the Soviet Union. In this context the US Government recently proposed the creation of an informal body in which COCOM members could enter into a dialogue with states of the former Warsaw pact on the control of sensitive technologies.
At a high level meeting of COCOM on 1 June, member countries decided to invite those COCOM-proscribed destinations which have embarked on political reform to join them in an informal COCOM co-operation forum on export controls. The primary objective of the forum will be to encourage countries to implement effective export controls, with a view to providing them with significantly wider access to COCOM-controlled goods and technology.