West Germans will champion N.Z.’s case inside the E.E.C.

Press, 22 June 1978, Page 1

West Germans will champion N.Z.’s case inside the E.E.C.

NZPA Bonn New Zealand was playing a small but increasingly significant part in West Germany’s global strategy, said a senior Foreign Ministry official in Bonn yesterday. “We have discovered each other and we are seeing new dimensions in each other,” he told New Zealand reporters. New Zealand, rather than Australia, was becoming the hub of West Germany’s interests in the South Pacific. It was a policy, the official said, which had the support of the West German Chancellor (Mr Schmidt) and which was largely formulated by the Chancellor’s “troubleshooter,” the Minister of State (Mr Jurgen Wischnewski), who met the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Taiboys) yesterday. Investment by West Germanv. Europe’s richest

country, in New Zealand has doubled in the last year and more investment programmes are under way, which will be given even more weight when a Federation of German Industries delegation visits New Zealand early next year.

The interest in New Zealand is being underlined by the State visit to New Zealand in October by the Republic’s President (Dr Scheel). He is expected to make an announcement on the expansion of relations, including a proposal to establish in New Zealand a branch of the world-wide Goethe Language Institute. The official said the figures on the numbers of New Zealanders learning to speak German were impressive.

It was in Germany’s interests, the official said, to support New Zealand as a “European” nation in the South Pacific. “It’s a good.

sound argument that a strong New Zealand is good for the South Pacific as a whole.” New Zealand has pressed this argument in talks with the European Economic Community: that its ability to play a leading role in the region depends on the economic well-being that is provided by continued and secure access for its farm products. The official said that West Germany appreciated and supported this argument and in its turn, would take the same line with the Community. “A Community of 200 million people should look after a country of three million,” he said. Germany would argue on New Zealand’s behalf in Europe, he said, especially from July to Decembe. when Germany had the presidency of the Council of Ministers. The first German moves

to expand its relations with New Zealand, the official said, came three years ago when Papua New' Guinea became independent. Papua New Guinea sought Germany’s help in becoming a signatory to an agreement between the E.E.C. and African, Caribbean and Pacific sugar producing states.

The Bonn Government then decided that its Pacific policy would be managed from Wellington, and that West Germany would consult New Zealand before any moves in the area on aid or on joint ventures with Pacific states. The broad policy, motivated, the official said, in part by the 1976 fears of Russian aspirations in the South Pacific, had some practical, continuing elements. A joint fishing venture between a New Zealand and a West German company for research and deep-sea fishing in New

Zealand's economic zone was about to be finalised, and German and New Zealand scientists were cooperating in agriculture and in the Antarctic. West Germany wants to join the Antarctic Treaty nations. One reason, the official said, that West Germany decided to work in the Pacific through New Zealand rather than Australia was that the Australian economy was more broadly based and less in need of support from outside.

But another factor was that the Germans decided it was politically wiser to associate themselves with New Zealand, because of its “wiser, more gentlemanly” approaches to the E.E.C. The Australians, the official said, rubbed Europeans the wrong way with their table-thumping demands to the E.E.C. and threats of retaliation on E.E.C. exports to Australia.