Irish poll seen to delay deal

Press, 1 June 1989, Page 4

Irish poll seen to delay deal

NZPA staff correspondent London European Community Agriculture Ministers agreed to delay a decision on New Zealand butter and lamb access partly out of consideration for the Irish Agriculture Minister, Michael O’Kennedy, whose Government will contest a General Election next month, officials say. Mr O’Kennedy, who has said proposals for New Zealand butter imports are too generous, joined the French Minister, Henri Nallet, in strenuous resistance to a bid to separate butter and sheepmeat in the discussions, a spokesman for the Irish delegation said. The linkage has held up agreement on a new butter quota for 1989 because France and other sheepmeat producers have argued that plans to reform the community’s own sheepmeat production should be resolved before the “external” regime — principally New Zealand lamb imports — is finalised. At Tuesday’s agriculture council meeting in Brussels, the Irish Minister was “particularly concerned” that the New Zealand butter and lamb proposals should remain a package, the spokesman said.

“We wouldn’t have been anxious to have a resolution on butter,” he said. A general consensus existed that the council was not ready to tackle the

problem. The British, who have backed the package agreed between New Zealand's Minister of External Relations and Trade, Mr Moore, who will fly to Brussels this week-end, and the community’s Agriculture Commissioner, Frans Andriessen, last October, were apparently happy to let the New Zealand question slide until the next meeting on June 19, the week after the Irish election. “The Minister (John MacGregor) understands that the Irish have an election coming up,” a British spokesman, Jim Coe, said. “It would have been unrealistic to expect a decision.” The council agreement to "roll-over” New Zealand butter imports to Britain at their 1988 level for only one further month was an encouraging sign, he said, because it would keep the pressure on the community members to agree to the package. He said there was still considerable disagreement over the contents of the package, which would: • Cut butter imports 10,000 tonnes to 64.500 tonnes this year and further over the next three years in return for a levy cut. • Cut maximum lamb sendings by 40.500 tonnes to 205,000 tonnes a year in return for the elimination of a 10 per cent tariff.