‘Continuing interest by N.Z. in E.E.C.’

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32635, 17 June 1971, Page 1

‘Continuing interest by N.Z. in E.E.C.’

(From Our Own Reporter; WELLINGTON, June 16. No matter what the result was of Common Market decisions in the final negotiations, New Zealand interest in the Common Market agricultural policy on dairy produce would dot terminate, said the chairman of the Monetary and Economic Council (Professor F. W. Holmes) today.

Addressing a gathering of the British Trade Association, Professor Holmes said that no matter how favourable to New Zealand any bargain made next week might be, the arguments would continue.

“If the Community’s support prices were held at levels which continued to generate substantial surpluses, pressures to exclude our produce would be bound to intensify,” Professor Holmes said. "Subsidised competition in other markets, already aggravated

by the exclusion from Britain of exporters like Australia, woura be severe. "Accordingly we shall not be able to let up in our endeavours in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and other international forums, to negotiate more satisfactory international arrangements on protection and surplus disposal of dairy products. ■OWN BARRIERS’ "Indeed, we shall have to share actively the concern of others that enlargement does not provoke a reversal of progress towards liberalisation of trade generally,' because those excluded retail-

ate against any damage done by enlargement of their own exports by erecting protective barriers of their own.” Professor Holmes said he doubted that any quantitative assurances would emerge from next week’s negotiations

as far as lamb was concerned. The Six, being small producers and consumers of sheep meats, had devised no common policy on sheep meats, except the tariff of 20 per cent. BRITISH PRICE

Though the French had talked of a set of regulations, presumably to subject lamb to controls akin to those on other meats, neither the French nor the commission were apparently going to press this issue prior to British entry. Professor Holmes said that any benefits that might accrue would depend heavily on the price Britain was expected to pay for entry. "It would be one thing for Britain to be a member of a liberal, outward-looking community; it would be quite another to belong to a Community which imposed excessively heavy burdens on British consumers and taxpayers to support Continental farmers, and unnecessarily shattered long-standing economic relationships with other countries which Britain considered it important to preserve.” Professor Holmes does not believe that Britain needs to join the Community at any price.