E.E.C. Split Over Political Union

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29801, 18 April 1962, Page 15

E.E.C. Split Over Political Union

(N .Z.P.A .-Reuter—Copyright)

PARIS, April 17.

Foreign Ministers of the six Common Market countries are meeting today to discuss a plan for a political union of European States, and Britain’s relationship to it. The so-called Fouchet plan, backed by France, provides for a governing council of Prime Ministers. But Holland and Belgium are believed to be insisting on a change in the draft treaty.

They want it to include provisions for a three-year trial period election of a European parliament by universal suffrage, and the suppression of the veto right in the European institutions. Well-informed purees said that if no compromise was reached they might demand the shelving of he Fouchet plan until after the current negotiations on British entry into the Common Market. Negotiations cn British entry into the Common Market have reached agreemen on two points over the imports of manufactured products —especially textiles—from Commonwealth countries such as Hong Kong, India and Pakistan, according to well-informed sources in Brussels. The two basic principles are:

(1) That exports from these Commonwealth countries should not be fundamentally harmed: and (2) The Community’s markets should not be disturbed by a flow of cneap manufactures. The sources said that no ready-made solutions had yet been found which would take into account these two apparently conflicting principles. These points were contained in a progress report on the negotiations which sets out the view of Britain and the Six under seven main headings. It will form the basis of the Brussels ministerial discussions on May 8 and 9. The report revealed that hardly any of the important differences on British and Commonwealth agriculture had been solved, the sources said. On the important question of Commonwealth farm exports, the report said that Britain did not refuse to envisage substantial modifications to the present Commonwealth preference system as long as comparable outlets were guaranteed in the enlarged Common Market, the sources said.

tiate specific arrangements for Commonwealth farm exports on a product-by-pro-duct basis during a transitional period wuich would allow Commonwealth countries to adapt themselves to the changed circumstances, they said. Britain emphasised in the report that the seven-and-a-half-year transitional period agreed upon by the Six in their common agricultural policy would not be long enough to allow Commonwealth and British agriculture to adapt themselves to the new condition.

Although no specific length of time was ment ; oned in the report, it was reliably learned in Brussels that Britain would like a transitional period of at least 12 years. The Six said they were prepared to stud? transitional arrangements for the Commonwealth on a product-by-product basis on condition that these were strictly limited in time and were based not on quotas but on the community’s system. Among the types of solutions proposed by Britain were duty-free quotas or quotas with lower duties, long-term contracts or mar-ket-sharing arrangements. The main products to which these arrangements would apply include quality wheat from Canada, soft wheat from Australia and dairy products from New Zealand, the sources said.

Britain would like to nego-

Tiros IV Maps (N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) WASHINGTON, April 17. The United States Weather Bureau has begun radioing cloud maps, based on the photographs taken by the Tiros IV weather satellite to more than 100 countries, including the Soviet Union.