E.E.C. sheepmeats regime held certain

Press, 12 June 1978, Page 2

E.E.C. sheepmeats regime held certain

The Dominion president of Federated Fanners (Mr A. F. Wright) has returned from a visit to Europe convinced of the inevitability of the European Economic Community’s adopting a sheepmeats regulation governing trading wMn the Community and with owttide countries such as New Zealand.

He is, therefore, concerned that total opposition on the part of New Zealand to the present proposed regulation may not be in this country’s best interests.

From talks he has had in Rome, Paris, Brussels London, Bonn, Dublin, and Edinburgh, said Mr Wright it was obvious there would, be extreme pressure from! British fanners to settle!' their access to France for| ■-heepmeat and the only wayi' that this could be achieved was by enforcement of the; introduction of a sheepmeats regulation. The British demands followed a recent deal between France and the Irish Repub-| lie giving the latter complete! access to the French market for its lamb production. Furthermore, Mr Wright said, Britain did not allow! free access to potatoes I under Community trading; conditions and in that easel

.he could see countries symi pathetic to New Zealand — | “this country has many | friends in Europe” — which were not basically concerned with sheepmeats accepting a ; trade-off in which a sheepj meats regulation was adopted in return for free i access to Britain for po;tatoes. | “From my observations, J lam convinced that a sheep- ; meats regulation will be enforced, probably sooner than | later,” said Mr Wright, and i while the present regulation I as written aeems to favour I New Zealand, strong opposition or a negative approach

on it from New Zealand could cause a hardening of the attitude of some E.E.C. countries, and a rewritten regulation may not be as sympathetic to New Zealand's case.”

Mr Wright added that he would be interested to know the impressions gained by the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Taiboys), on his return from his latest visit to Europe. He was sure that Mt Taiboys could well come home with a view similar to his.

Nevertheless, Mr Wright said, he could understand the New Zealand Government’s attitude and opposition to the regulation, particularly in relation to the safeguard clause, and New Zealand would need to insist that this clause was written round the G.A.T.T. agreement and not the E.E.C. Common Agricultural Policy. If this was not agreed to he, too, would share the Government's oppostion to any regulation. Mr Wright said he was concerned about New Zealand's long-term future in dairy markets in Europe because of the huge increases in production that were being achieved there as a re-

sult of the incentives that farmers were receiving.

In the Irish Republic,! (where dairy production) seemed to have been based! on New Zealand techniques* production had increased 20 per cent last year and this year was running 25 per cent up on last year. Thus, any hope that New Zealand might have of negotiating access for Cheddar to the European market again would be very strongly opposed by the Irish. Over-all production trends in Europe were also quite dramatically upwards, and. this would make it much harder for New Zealand to negotiate continued access to the European market, said Mr Wright; but he believed that in the negotiations now proceeding in Geneva under G.A.T.T., the long-term service of the New Zealand dairy industry to Europe was recognised. >

Of recent developments on the New Zealand scene during his absence, Mr Wright praised the Budget and its implications for farmers. He

said he was very pleased with the Budget. It should igive farmers a long-awaited (boost in confidence, and he i was sure that if all the measures it contained were

fully used by farmers there should be an improvement in total production arid in farmers’ attitudes to the inflationary problems that they had been faced with.

While flying back to New Zealand Mr Wright had had an opportunity of reading about the actions of Southland farmers in letting old ewes loose in the centre of Invercargill on Friday and in slaughtering them in protest against industrial stoppages in the freezing industry in their province.

From what he had read while he was away, Mr Wrignt said, it was clear that the hopes that had been held for an improvement in the industrial scene after the wage' settlement in March when the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) ■ had intervened had not materialised in uninterrupted killing. Compared with other parts of New Zealand,

Southland farmers seemed to have borne the brunt of disruptions in the industry in the past and he could understand their intense reaction to the present situation, which had led to their putting their case in this particular way.

Mr Wright said that because he did not have the : full background to the farmers’ action, he was not able to comment fully on the incident, but he said it was not the sort of way that he would have liked to see Federated Farmers put its case to the public. From Brussels, an NZPA correspondent, Roy Harbour, reports that if Australia has any hope of improving its exports to Europe this must lie in the Geneva international trade negotiations and will not be realised through lobbying of individual European politicians and administrators. This was the message delivered firmly and unapologetically by the Common Market’s executive commission in the round of negotiations which ended on Friday.

It was a stance immediately branded “neither reasonable nor acceptable” by the Australian Prime Minister (Mr Fraser). The Special Trade Representations Minister (Mr Garland) who has been trying for the last six months to break — or at least bend — E.E.C. trade barriers both through frontal assaults in Brussels and skirmishes in the other capitals of the Nine, was subdued and tired as he explained the failure of his campaign. “After all the preparation, after all the visits and correspondence, after all the delays, the commission has offered Australia nothing of any value,” he said. “It has not even given a formal written response to Australia’s formal written proposals.”

Both Mr Garland and his Prime Minister, who heard the results of the negotiations in London, stopped short of an immediate declaration of trate war — but the hints were clear.

(Further reports, Page 6)