P.M. to press N.Z. case in Dublin

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33776, 24 February 1975, Page 2

P.M. to press N.Z. case in Dublin

(From CHARLES COOPER. London correspondent of "The Press") PARIS, February 7 23. The Prime Minister (Mr Rowling) has added a significant twist to the tail of his European itinerary by deciding to include Dublin on his visiting list.

The Irish capital will be the scene of next month’s momentous E.E.C. summit meeting when the conclusion of the British renegotiations is due to be reached, and when New Zealand’s bid for a new butter and cheese deal after 1977 will make its first front-of-stage appearance.

The message Mr Rowling will take to Dublin will be the same as he has left in his trail in London, Brussels, Bonn and Paris — but with the added importance that in meeting the Irish Prime Minister (Mr Cosgrave) he will be meeting the summit chairman. MT Rowling wound up the first phase of his European E.E.C. crusade in Paris veaterday and is flying to Burcharest today leaving the Minister of Overseas Trade (Mr Walding) to take over the European scene. ‘French good will’ Although some Paris sources maintain that France would tolerate no drastic improvement of New Zealand's position, Mr Rowling said at a press conference in Paris that he had been “warmed by the utmost good will” that he had encountered. He said that although problems were admitted, there had been no sugges tlons that they should be insuperable.

The French Prime Minister (Mr Jacques Chirac) had told him: "There are none that we cannot solve.” The French response, cordial, but certainly without commitment, was better than had been expected and underlined the shift from the bhint Pomoidou regime to the conciliatory Giscard tl’Estalng era.

Dairy access At the press conference. Mr Rowling specified what New Zealand expected from the Dublin summit: "A statement of principle” that would lay foundations for the detailed review of New Zealand’s dairy access to British markets, due later this year. The principal elements of New Zealand’s claim for permanent protection were guaranteed access beyond 1977, a boosted price formula with .annual reviews, quotas in milk Equivalents (to ensure the entry of both cheese and butted and the elimination oft the "degression” clffise which slices progressively each year. Thfese would be radical changes in protocol 18, tantamount to a rewriting, and are bound to spark furious resistance from other dairy countries.

Protection But Mr Rowling maintains that they do not alter the “spirit” of the protocol which, he says, embodied the desire to protect New Zealand from disastrous exclusion from historic markets.

He cites the Community’s agreement last year to award New Zealand an 18 per cent price rise as indicating that the protocol is adaptable — and evidence of an acceptance that the original pricing formula had failed to be satisfactory. The possibility of measuring New Zealand's tonnages in milk equivalents, rather than in fixed amounts of

'butter, after 1977, had been; la British proposal. Mr Rowling said. It would allow the entry lof cheese, at present to be I prohibited after 1977, to be (varied with butter; and he i could see that it would 'benefit equally the E.E.C. I and New Zealand in controlling production surIpluses. He had sown the seeds of this solution in Germany and in France. ‘Upheld spirit’ Mr Rowling insisted that New Zealand had faithfully observed the spirit of protocol 18 , by intensive diversification of production and markets, during the British transitional period, and said that the Community, too, had adhered to the spirit of it Now, what New Zealand | was asking was a contini nation of that spirit of the protocol — but with a look at the ground-rules under which it applied.

Amendments to these ground-rules,-the British version of which was sent to Common Market countries this week, will be a big feature of the British renegotiation hassle at the Dublin summit over March P and 11. Consistent with their orig-

inal denunciation of the treatment of New Zealand by the then-Heath Government, British Labour Ministers have wrapped up New i Zealand's position within the I controverisal package of I their dissatisfactions with 'the Conservatives’ E.E.C. entry terms. Effect on poll They desire greatly to be able to produce a result that would satisfy New Zealand, even in terms only of broad principle, and allow them to proclaim to the electorate that over-all conditions were now acceptable.

This the British Government must do to have a hope of swinging the June referendum in favour of staying in Europe — which is just where Mr Wilson desperately wants to be, and where, on balance, New Zealand wants Britain, too.

While Mr Rowling has consistently refused to be drawn in public on whether New Zealand would prefer a Britain in or out of. the Common Market — he has shown no reticence in admitting that all New Zealand’s planning and meotiations is on the basis of Britain’s staying in. “New Zealand’s interests must in the long term be in the strongest possible Europe and the strongest possible United Kingdom,” was the Prime Minister’s response when the question was put to him again yesterday. In other words, a solvent trading bloc with the ability to afford even more than the vital third of all New Zealand’s exports that it takes now. ‘Wider horizons’ But for the next week the Prime Minister will be able to put butter and cheese in the cupboard and turn to his “wider horizons” policy with excursions into Rumania and Jugoslavia. In Bucharest he will explore the potential of a Rumanian initiative to increase trade with New Zealand and discuss the feasibility of New Zealand's benefiting from Rumania’s extensive expertise in the development of oil fields. When he goes to Belgrade, later in the week, Mr Rowling will be returning a visit that the Jugoslav Prime Minister made to New Zealand in 1973.

New Zealand has promising ties with Jugoslavia and a “family” relationship through the large Jugoslav community in New Zealand. Mr Rowling will seek a strengthening of both the political and trade links between the two countries.