Rival To Dollar Area Planned

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31985, 12 May 1969, Page 13

Rival To Dollar Area Planned

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

STUTTGART, May 11.

West Germany’s Rightist National Democratic Party today opened its campaign for the Federal elections in September with a proposal for a Deutschmark-based rival to the dollar area.

The suggestion is a major point in the N.P.D. election manifesto that is to be voted on at a two-day congress in Stuttgart. “West Germany is the strongest economic power in Europe, and it is logical that the Deutschmark should represent the basis for a bloc to include the pound sterling and the French franc,” a party spokesman told reporters. The party, which hopes to send between 40 and 60 deputies to the Bundestag (Federal Lower House) in Bonn after the polls, will fight for the proposal in Parliament, which has 500 members.

“The pound and franc have become sick through inflationary policies,” the N.P.D. spokesman said. “There is not much left of sterling’s reserve role, and the Euro-mark currency would kill off this speculation.”

The 700 party delegates, from branches all over West Germany, yesterday ran the gauntlet of young demonstrators who shouted abuse and hurled eggs outside Stuttgart’s modern conference hall.

Earlier, the party had had the hall opened by a locksmith, accompanied by a bailiff, after the management had refused to open the doors despite a court ruling that the N.P.D. should be allowed to use,the premises. The city council, which owns the building, objected to the congress on “fundamental legal and political grounds.” » In protest against the court’s ruling, the hall management removed the main electric power fuses and the congress had to be held in emergency lighting.