TRADE WITH EUROPE

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28820, 14 February 1959, Page 13

TRADE WITH EUROPE

Britain Not To Join E.E.C.

(Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, February 13.

Britain should not contemplate a system of working with Europe which was at the expense of her ties with the Commonwealth, the Paymaster-General, Mr Reginald Maudling, said today.

He rejected, in the House of Commons, a Liberal Party proposal that Britain should join the six-nation European Economic Community. “It would be bad for us, bad for the Commonwealth and, I

think, bad for the whole free world if Britain were ever forced to choose between Europe and the Commonwealth,” he said.

Mr Maudling said it was of great importance . that trade between the Commonwealth and Europe should expand as it had done in recent years. But he did not see how there were possibilities of negotiations between them for, a free trade area or a common market

The European countries wished to expand their sales of industrial products and to continue to protect their domestic agriculture. On the other hand, the Commonwealth countries wished to expand their sales of agricultural products and to continue to protect their domestic industries. Mr Maudling said the Government’s principle was to establish a multilateral association among all 17 countries in Western Europe.

Mr Henry Legge-Bourke (Conservative) urged the Government to reserve the right to abrogate the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade after the next election.

It should reassert the right to discriminate in trade and say it would renegotiate the Ottawa Agreements (for Imperial trade preferences) and apply the principles of those agreements not only to Commonwealth countries, but to any others which wantedto do business.