Schmidt and Wilson talk

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33706, 2 December 1974, Page 17

Schmidt and Wilson talk

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, December 1. The West German chancellor (Mr Helmut Schmidt) and the British Prime Minister (Mr Harold Wilson) this morning will conclude preparatory discussions on the proposed European Common Market summit meeting, EastWest relations, the world oil and energy crisis, and the Middle East.

They began their discussions last evening at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s official country residence near London. British officials eaid that the two leaders were particularly discussing the topics that would come up at the nine-nation European Community summit meeting which is expected to be held in Paris on December 9 and 10. Mr Schmidt went into the talks with Mr Wilson after receiving warm applause for a speech at the Labour Party’s annual conference in London yesterday.

Despite an earlier threat of a walk-out by some Leftwing Labour politicians, he told the conference delegates that their comrades on the Continent wanted Britain to stay in the European Community. He asked them to weigh this “if you talk of solidarity.” Some of the Labour Left-wingers had earlier this month threatened to walk out if Mr Schmidt spoke in controversial terms about tfie question of continued British membership of the Common Market. But Mr Schmidt’s carefully-worded speech, tinged with humour, received a big welcome.

The West German Chancellor, in his speech, made clear that he we,s not going to interfere with Britain’s decision about whether to remain in the Common Market after the current renegotiation of its membership terms,* have been concluded

next year. But he said that his Social Democrat Party felt that the advantage of the European Community had greater weight than the stresses and burden. The Common Market was an organisation whose space and direction could only be decided by the agreement of all its nine members.

“We felt that it provides us with the necessary means for co-operation which we need to solve the problems of the present-day crisis of the world’s economic structure,” he observed. One of Mr Schmidt’s expectations from his talks with Mr Wilson, from a meeting on the way home with the Belgian Prime Minister (Mr Leo Tindmans) and then from his summit meeting with President Gerald Ford next week, is to get first-hand information on other countries’ economic planning.

The Schmidt — Wilson talks at a working dinner last night were also attended by the Foreign Secretary (Mr James Callaghan), the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Denis Healey), the Defence Secretary (Mr Roy Mason) and Mr Harold Lever, the Prime Minister’s special adviser on economic affairs and the energy and oil problem.

Mr Callaghan will be attending a meeting in Brussels on Monday of the Common Market foreign ministers further to prepare for the projected .Paris summit

conference. Mr Healey and Mr Lever are due to visit Saudi Arabia and Iran respectively later this month for talks on the oil and related world trading and economic issues. Mr Schmidt also said that he had just returned from a visit to the Soviet Union, “during which I got the clear impression that the Soviet leaders are seriously interested in the continuation of detente.”

But he said that they represented a very powerful alliance and “we ought to be careful in order to maintain the balance of power.” His speech came near the end of a four-day Laboui Conference in which calls were made by the increasingly powerful left wing for the Government to take more notice of conference decisions and to organise a fair referendum on the Common Market speedily.