Annual butter quotas opposed

Press, 3 May 1984, Page 3

Annual butter quotas opposed

NZPA staff correspondent London A five-year agreement for New Zealand butter sales to Britain with quotas fixed annually was not a five-year agreement at all, said the Minister of Overseas Trade, Mr Cooper, in London. This is what Ireland is holding out for as it continues to block European Economic Community Commission proposals for a fiveyear deal. The proposals would give New Zealand an 83,000tonne quota this year, dropping 2000 tonnes a year to 75,000 tonnes in 1988. The Irish Agriculture Minister, Mr Austin Deasy, wants the quantity to be fixed yearly. Mr Cooper, who will see him in Dublin this evening (New Zealand time),. said,

“We want to get the message across that year by year is no substitute for a five-year agreement. “A yearly arrangement is a yearly arrangement, not a five-year agreement. It means it would be up for grabs in the Community each year,” he said. Mr Cooper was speaking after meeting the British Agriculture Minister, Mr Michael Jopling, and the Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe. He has now visited six of the E.E.C. capitals to restate New Zealand’s case before the Agriculture Council meeting in Brussels next week. Mr Cooper said there had been no opposition to the E.E.C. Commission proposals from the Ministers he has talked to so far.