E.E.C. to sell more old butter to Russia

Press, 21 February 1986, Page 6

E.E.C. to sell more old butter to Russia

NZPA-Reuter Brussels

The European Community would resume controversial sales of old butter to the Soviet Union at knock-down prices in a bid to reduce surplus stocks of over one million tonnes, a Community official said yesterday. Experts from the 12 member States would draw up a plan today setting a special subsidy for sales of more than 100,000 tonnes of butter older than 18 months to the Soviet Union, India and Pakistan. Trade sources said the deal was tailor-made for a French Communist millionaire, Jean-Bap-tiste Doumeng, whose giant firm, Interagra, specialises in bulk sales of Community surplus

food mountains to Moscow, often with sub-con-tracts to other European traders. The sources said secret negotiations on new butter sales were already under way with the Soviet Union. There was no likelihood of sales under this scheme to India or Pakistan. The Community last authorised specially subsidised butter sales to Moscow in December, 1884, when a sale of 220,800 tonnes was strongly criticised by the United States and New Zealand and sparked a political row in Europe. European deputies said the bargain butter should be sold to European consumers, but Commission officials argued that that would distort the market They said Community

housewives would turn their noses up at 18-month-old butter. The Community official said the planned new subsidy would respect recent stricter controls on cut-price butter sales imposed by The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the Geneva-based world trade watch-dog. He said it was impossible to forecast how much butter Moscow would buy or at what price, since that would be determined by tender. The Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Frans Andriessen, emphasised in September that the E.E.C. would be looking for a “good price” from Moscow, unlike previous knock-down sales that had angered competitors.