NIXONS OIL TALKS France adopts tough attitude

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33452, 6 February 1974, Page 12

NIXONS OIL TALKS France adopts tough attitude

(N.Z.P..4.-Reuter— Copyright) BRUSSELS, February 5. France has adopted a tough attitude towards the meeting in Washington next week of the principal energyusing nations.

! A French paper on the conference, called by President 1 Nixon for February 11, says that it should take no decisions in the absence of’ the Arab and other oilproducing nations. The French draft was sub-1 mitted to a session of E.E.C.’ Foreign Ministers in Brus-! seis. French participation in the: Washington meeting is still uncertain, although the Nine have already agreed that the Community, as such, shall be represented by the present chairman of the E.E.C. Council of Ministers, the West German Foreign Minister, Mr 'Walter Scheel, and the Presi[dent of the E.E,C. Commis-j Ision (Mr Francois-Xavier' Ortoli).

France has always been the least enthusiastic of the Common Market countries to attend the Washington talks, fearing that the Arab oilproducers might interpret her attendance as a sign that the rich industrialised world is ganging up against them. The French Foreign Minister (Mr Michel Jobert) gave no hint of his intentions when he arrived this morn-

mg at the E.E.C. council imeeting in Brussels, the aim lof which is to map out the 'Community’s strategy at the Washington conference. All Mr Jobert would say in ;reply to , journalists’ quesi tions was that it was he who proposed last month that the 'Community (in the form of Mr Scheel and Mr Ortoli) ! should be represented in Washington. Apart from ruling out the idea that the meeting should take decisions—as the Americans seem to want — the French are also insisting that the Community must re--1 tain its political autonomy, to make its own deals with the oil-producers.