Disappointment At Mr Barber’s Posting

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32359, 27 July 1970, Page 14

Disappointment At Mr Barber’s Posting

CNew Zealand Press Association)

ROTORUA, July 26.

Disappointment at losing direct contact in E.E.C. negotiations with Mr Anthony Barber, who has been appointed Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, was voiced today by New Zealand’s Minister of Overseas Trade (Mr Marshall).

But the Minister, interviewed in Rotorua, said his visit to Britain earlier this month and his briefing of Mr Barber on New Zealand’s case for special consideration had not been wasted. At the time of Mr Marshall’s visit, M' Barber was Britain’s chief negotiator on E.E.C. matters. “As Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr Barber will be a member of the Cabinet committee dealing with Britain’s application to join the E.E.C.,” Mr Marshall said. “And on July 21 he set out for the Council of Ministers in Brussels a very adequate statement of New Zealand’s problems. This is a matter of record and it will not be changed by a change of negotiator.”

Mr Marshall said that since there would be holidays in Europe for about six weeks he did not expect to bring forward his plans for revisiting Britain and the E.E.C. countries later this year. “But at the appropriate time it will be necessary to brief the new negotiator as thoroughly as I intended to brief Mr Barber,” he said. An invitation to visit New Zealand would undoubtedly be extended to the new negotiator, when he was named, probably this week. “We think it highly desirable that he should not only know New Zealand’s case but should also experience it,” Mr Marshall said.

He said he had had discussions while last in Britain with Mr Geoffrey Rippon, the present Minister of Technology, who is widely tipped to succeed Mr Barber as the chief British negotiator. Mr Marshall said Mr Rippon was an able man. (Appointment of Mr Barber, Page 13.)