E.E.C. COMPROMISE BY FRENCH POSSIBLE

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32459, 20 November 1970, Page 3

E.E.C. COMPROMISE BY FRENCH POSSIBLE

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent) BRUSSELS, Nov. 19. If the New Zealand problem was the only outstanding matter to be decided in the British bid to enter the Common Market, the French Government would go a substantial distance towards compromise, a spokesman for the Belgian Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

The spokesman, who sits in on E.E.C. negotiations at an official level, said he believed

that the French position had softened noticeably in recent months, and that the political will to have Britain in the E.E.C. was now present. “If questions of the transitional period, general financing and Commonwealth sugar are resolved, I believe that the French will go a long way towards granting a satisfactory special arrangement for New Zealand,” the spokesman said.

Commenting on the change in French attitude, the spokesman said he believed that the Government in Paris was reconciled to a restructuring of French agriculture. “The old Gaullist idea that the French farming commun-

ity has some mystical quality within the nation, is no longer as strong," he said. “Mr Duhamel (French Minister of Agriculture) in the final analysis will ’ probably go along with his colleagues on the question of a special arrangement for New Zealand at the cost of some of France’s inefficient producers.”

The spokesman said he thought the expressions of support which the New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Marshall) had received in the capital of the Six would stand up in' the heat of the negotiations. “Of course, I can speak only for the Belgian Government,” he said. “I am sure, however, that the position detailed by Mr Harmel (Belgian’s Foreign Minister) in yesterday’s talks is the one we will take in negotiations.

“It is in our interest to have a more sensible agriculture policy in the Community.” On the question of when substantial discussion on New Zealand's problems would begin, the spokesman said he thought it was unlikely that a Community position would become apparent before the new Mansholt recommendations on agriculture became known. Dr. Sicco Mansholt, the E.E.C. Commisioner of . Agriculture and formulator of the plan to rationalise community agriculture, is at present working on amended proposals. He is expected to bring down a report next month. “The exact recommendations that Di- Mansholt makes will go a long way towards determining our position," said the spokesman. “When we have them, serious negotiations can begin.”