Mr Taiboys aims to avert catastrophe

Press, 12 June 1978, Page 6

Mr Taiboys aims to avert catastrophe

INZPA London I The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Taiboys) will have lone aim when he takes the familiar route through the Common Market capitals over the next three weeks: To avert what the Meat Board says might be an economic catastrophe for New Zealand. As one New Zealand official remarked: “This is our moment of truth.” Mr Taiboys, as Minister of Overseas Trade, will see Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Agriculture, and Trade of each of the nine E.E.C. countries as well as senior I E.E.C. officials in an attempt I to influence their thinking ion the plans for a Common (Market regulation on sheepjmeat. In New Zealand’s cage, for I. sheepmeat read lamb: a |s3 1 0 M-a-year industry (which, if it were to be cut (back, would shatter New 'Zealand’s economic base. I “We are talking about a (specialised trade that has built up over almost 100 years, not about something like milk products which can be made into something else,” said the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) when he 'was in London in April. The Common Market, in |its inexorable, bureaucratic ( style, believes it should control the trade in sheepmeat (just as it does in dairy prod- ( acts, beef, cereals, and other (commodities. ' The regulation proposed in March by the E.E.C. Commission is, in the words of Mr Taiboys, “Along the classical lines.” It includes a safeguard clause which allows the E.E.C. to shut out imports from third countries completely, licensing provisions which New Zealand also fears, and aids to private storage which critics see as just another phrase for intervention, the scourge of the beef regulation. It provides for a system of variable levies with a rider in New Zealand’s favour that the levies shall not rise above 20 per cent, (the size of the levy bound in (the General Agreement on (Tariffs and Trade that New (Zealand producers have paid (since July last year. Another worrying feature jof the proposal is that it talks vaguely of a base ; price, to be calculated in the ifirst year of application as (an average of ruling prices (throughout Europe. As the (French price for lamb is 70 per cent higher than that in Britain, such a scheme could immediately push up prices in Britain, one of New Zealand’s worries. Mr Taiboys does not need to fall back on emotive reasoning to underline New Zealand’s stake in sheepmeat. He and the Meat Board argue that it makes economic sense not to restrict the sales of New Zealand’s lamb either in Britain or in any of the other eight members of the Common Market. Unlike the regulationbound trade in beef and

I dairy products, Europe is by I no means self-sufficient in I sheepmeat. It can produce I only 63 per cent of what it I consumes. Of the lamb Eur(ope imports, a staggering 84 per cent comes from New (Zealand. The commission accepts this and its acceptance is' borne out by the Twin facts that it consulted New Zealand before it drew up its; proposal, and that its Parlia-I ment is prepared to accept: submissions from New Zea-! land. Of the nine members, only; Britain can match New Zealand in Jamb production: and Britain does not want to see; New Zealand shut out. Mr Taiboys will not have;

i just meat on his mind to the 1 exclusion of all else. New j i Zealand’s dairy products still t have a tenuous hold on the ■ British market and he may I make preliminary feelers on ' butter quotas for the period beyond 1980. ; The question of future > cheese access is bound up, >at the moment, in the ■; drawn-out G.A.T.T. negotiations at Geneva. Mr Taiboys ■I is likely to add Switzerland .: to his itinerary if the talks •Hook likely to reach finality Iby their target date of July • 15. He will also attend a Min-; I isterial meeting of the Ori ganisation for Economic Cooperation and Development : in Paris