French seek status quo on sheepmeat

Press, 17 February 1978, Page 17

French seek status quo on sheepmeat

From

JOHN ROSS

in Brussels

The clearest indication vet of the type of sheep-meat re- i gime the French would like i to see introduced for Europe 1 has come from the French i Minister of Agriculture (Mr 1 P. Mehaignerie). He has suggested that the . problem of a price differ- I ential between British and • French lamb could be solved ■ by compensator payments J to bridge the gap between the ] French guide price and the British guaranteed price. , Such an arrangement wou.J mean that British lamb would 1 sell on the French market at 1 the same price as French ' lamb so there would H l : ttle; incentive for British producers to seek sales in (France. Mr Mehaignerie told the ' .New Zealand Minister of" ! Agriculture (Mr Maclntyre) 1 last week that he would be ' quite happv for the status' 1 quo to continue and the (French proposal would be (Virtually that. i Mr Mehaignerie presented 1 I his plans at a meeting of French sheep producers in Gramat, southern France, where he stressed that the J main problem to be overcome i by a common sheep-meat re-| gime in Europe was the gap i in price between Britain and ' France. i

He repeated the old argu- i merit that Britain would be • able to send cheap lamb to France only because Britain i received big imports fro i . New Zealand. If there were no cheap iin- ; ports from third countries, goes the argument. British ' producers would be able to ’ get good prices in their own market instead of looking to 1 France. Mr Mehaignerie said ihai , France would not accent a communitv regime which did not give French nro ’ticers the same conditions of employment and of living they now enioved. He referred to article 43 of (the Treaty of Rome, a subclause of which specifies that la common sheep-meat policy I may involve the compulsory-(co-ordination of national i marketing organisations. The essential element in such a system, he said, would be the establishment of a compensatory amount on the lamb trade between France and Britain covering the difference between the French guide price and the British (guaranteed price. I He added some mystery to the situation when he said. “In order to guarantee the efficient functioning of the

and it is not clear where New Zealand would find Communitv to agree to such Mr Mehaignerie’s pm posals were repeated last week at the annual meeting by the Secretary of State for Agriculture (Mr E. Blanc) In Brussels yesterday, the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board replied to Common Market criticism that New Zealand had done little to push its lamb sales on the Mr" 1 W. A Joyce, the in Brussels, said that manv Europeans, particularlv the French. disliked frozen meats and many more people in the E.E.C. traditionally effort to convert them.