Harder French import policy?

Press, 21 April 1986, Page 4

Harder French import policy?

NZPA staff correspondent London

New Zealand diplomats expect France to take a tougher line against its imports, according to a report in the “Financial Times.”

The diplomats “do not conceal that they expect the going to become tougher, and that the French Government could (illegally) ‘stop most New Zealand imports into France’,” the correspondent, David Housego, said.

He wrote that Britain was being drawn into a deadlock over two French secret service agents jailed for 10 years in New Zealand because of the bombing of the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland. “Among Informal British proposals has been the suggestion that France’s offer to meet New Zealand demands for compensation (for the sinking) as a way of creating a more favourable climate in New Zealand for an early release of the agentsi”

The report said New Zealand stood to lose a great deal from its quarrel with France.

Its exports had grown sharply from $lO6 million in 1981-82 to $214 million in 1984-85, before France started to block the entry of New Zealand goods. “Quietly, since January — and without ever formally admitting it — the French have used import licences, sanitary regulations and incorrect labelling to block the New Zealand imports of lambs’ brains, frozen fish, kiwifruit, wool and bulls’ semen. They have also stopped entry of New Zealand seed potatoes into New Caledonia.” France had "declined to respond to New Zealand protests within the O.E.C.D. (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and G.A.T.T. (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) by anything more than a formal acknowledgement.

“If anything, the new Minister of External Trade, Mr Michel Noir, is expected to tighten the screw.”

The “Financial Times” said most serious for New. Zealand was the "implicit French threat to veto imports of New Zealand butter into Britain.”