Heath Seeking Speedy End To Negotiations

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29956, 18 October 1962, Page 17

Heath Seeking Speedy End To Negotiations

(N .Z.P A..-Reuter—Copyright)

LONDON. Oct. 17. Mr Edward Heath said last night he was trying to bring Britain’s negotiations to enter the Common Market to as “speedy a conclusion as possible.” Britain’s chief negotiator with the Six, he spoke of the talks in Brussels as the guest at honour at the British Motor Show dinner in London. He said: "I have been endeavouring to bring these negotiations to as speedy a conclusion as possible commensurate with thoroughness. In no case have we made a decision of any kind because of pressure of time or because of lack of time. "It behoves us to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion aa speedily as we can.” The British Government, he said, had made pledges to the Commonwealth, the European Free Trade Association and domestic agriculture. “To say that we have made negotiations quite regardless

of these pledges is completely unjustified and absolutely untrue,” Mr Heath said.

Until the negotiations were completed there would be the “widest measure of uncertainty” in Europe, the United States and the Commonwealth. "We ought to try to bring this uncertainty to an end as soqp as possible,” he said.