E.E.C. unlikely to shift on cheese

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33790, 12 March 1975, Page 2

E.E.C. unlikely to shift on cheese

(From

DAVID BARBER.

N.Z.P.A staff correspondent.)

DUBLIN, March 11.

European Common Market leaders will almost certainly not give New Zealand continued access for cheese to the British market after 1977.

But there are real prospects that when they resume their summit meeting in Dublin today they will agree to some formula that promises improved arrangements for butter at much improved prices.

It tnay be that the summit will produce no more than a general statement on New Zealand butter. But the signs early this morning were that it would be accompanied by a firm directive to the E.E.C. Commission to produce detailed proposals that would be acceptable to both Britain and New Zealand by July. Firm stand

The outstanding question today is bow long the British Prime Minister (Mr Wilson) will go in sticking out for New Zealand cheese. If be digs in his heels, he runs the risk of wrecking his final bid to re-negotiate satisfactorily Britain's Market entry terms.

All that was clear was that Mr Wilson’s European colleagues were united in their stand against giving New Zealand protected access for cheese after 1977. They said this would involve re-writing Protocol 18 of Britain's Treaty of Accession. The protocol, agreed in Luxemburg in 1971 and covering New Zealand's special arrangements for dairy exports to Britain, clearly lays down that New Zealand cheese quotas will be totally phased out by the end of 1977. Price vital

Mr Wilson’s proposal, put when the meeting opened yesterday afternoon, was that quotas for the three years 1978-1980 should be in terms of milk (or butter) equivalents—allowing either butter or cheese to be shipped. The eight other Community heads of government appeared ready to give general approval to Mr Wilson'S request for continued butter

i quotas at prices closely rei lated to the E.E.C.’s own floor price, with an annual review.

i If this is accepted, New i Zealand would be well pleased with Mr Wilson’s effort. The New Zealand Government, and the Opposition, have said that a better pricing arrangement is the most vital factor in a new 1 agreement. Under the present protocol, prices are pegged to the average levels of 1969-1972. This means that New Zealand gets only 46 per cent of the E.E.C.’s present floor price paid to its own farmers, for every ton of butter it ships to Britain.

U.K.idea It is unlikely that the New Zealand Government would be prepared to make a stand over cheese. It has already accepted that it would have no preferential arrangement for cheese after 1977 and has cultivated new markets.

But the milk equivalents formula was Mr Wilson’s own idea—put to the Prime Minister (Mr Rowling) in London last month. It is not known how far he is prepared to go on fighting for it.

In view of his battle for lower British contributions to the Community budget—the other outstanding re-

•(negotiation issue being disi cussed in Dublin—b6ing still unresolved, the feeling is that Mr Wilson would be unwise

to risk the collapse of the summit by sticking on the cheese question.