“Federation unlikely”

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32702, 3 September 1971, Page 24

“Federation unlikely”

A European political federation as a consequence of an enlarged Common Market was unlikely, a New Zealand expert on the Market and senior lecturer in political science at the University of Canterbury (Mr R. N. Kennaway) said in an interview. Mr Kennaway has returned from eight months study leave at the Centre for Contemporary European Studies at the University of Sussex. “The French view throughout, and now the British view, is that there will be no chance of a political union that would affect the authority of member r states.”

said. There would need to be a common foreign policy, and a European cabinet for such a union to operate;

“There would need to be a major change in policy on the part of Britain and France and I can see no sign of this happening; anyway, not in the foreseeable future,” Mr Kennaway said. Mr Kennaway who is writing a book about the relations between Britain and New Zealand over the Common Market from 1961 to 1971, said that a great many people who set up the present structure of the Market continued to see political union as the ultimate goal. One of the major reasons for the favourable consideration accorded New Zealand during the recent Common Market negotiations, Mr Kennaway said, was the pressure of British Parliamentary and public opinion. “I was quite surprised as everyone was, however, by the amount of attention given to the New Zealand question at the time of the Brussels negotiations.”

New Zealand had been fortunate and discussions with the Common Market headquarters in Brussels had led him to understand that the staff there were very impressed by the British handling of the New Zealand case, he said. Mr Kennaway said that he was “85 per cent certain” that Britain would enter the Market Factors militating against British entry were the unpopularity of the present British Government and the rising tide of unemployment which at present stood at more than one million.; “Entry will also mean higher prices. A lot ot people feel that the height' ened industrial activity wil absorb the unemployment The worry, is that the increased costs might mate British industry uncompetitive. There really is no answer to this yet,” he said.