Mr Cooper welcomes E.E.C. butter deal

Press, 21 June 1984, Page 2

Mr Cooper welcomes E.E.C. butter deal

PA Wellington The three-year butter deal agreed by E.E.C. Ministers would give the New Zealand dairy industry the degree of security it needed to plan its future marketing, said the Minister of Overseas Trade, Mr Cooper, yesterday. The agreement was long overdue but nonetheless very welcome, Mr Cooper said. The Dairy Board’s chairman, Mr James Graham, yesterday welcomed the E.E.C. decision. " “It is certainly a relief to hear that substantial movement has been made towards the final settlement of this question,” he said. Under the new agreement New Zealand can send 83,000 tonnes to the United Kingdom this year, 81,000 next year, and 79,000 in 1986. Quotas for 1987 and 1988

are to be set by August the previous years, based on proposals and a market report from the E.E.C. Commission. The commission had originally proposed a fiveyear agreement with imports from New Zealand being cut progressively

from 83,000 tonnes this year to 75,000 tonnes in 1988. Mr Cooper said that while the agreement reduced the quantities New Zealand would be able to sell compared with previous years, it provided the security of access it needed to its main butter market. In spite of the Government’s efforts and those of other member States, including France, it was not possible to persuade Ireland to accept quantities proposed by the commission for the next five years, he said. “The continuation of this stalemate presented our dairy industry with an intolerable uncertainty.” Mr Graham said that the Community’s Special Agriculture Committee had still to examine some of the details of the decision. “We will, of course, need to look closely at this fine print but the stage now seems set for a final

clearance when the council next meets in July,” he said. Mr Cooper said he, in consultation with the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, had informed Community Agriculture Ministers on the eve of the council meeting that New Zealand could accept a proposal put forward at the May Agriculture Council by the German Government for a five-year arrangement with firm quantities fixed for the first three years. The Irish Agriculture Minister, Mr Austin Deasy, paid tribute to his New Zealand “adversaries” in the deal. He said he had been impressed by the attitude of Sir Robert and Mr Cooper. “They did not attempt to, force their will on us and they were very diplomatic,” he said, after agreement was reached. He later said privately that he had faced a lot of criticism from his E.E.C. colleagues over his stand. “We had a duty to agree to what we did agree,” he said, adding that the butter surplus was still a big problem for the E.E.C. On Monday, when the council meeting began, he told the British Agriculture Minister, Mr Michael Jopling, that it was a “waste of time” bringing it up this week.