Brussels, 13 May 1971
364. Confidential
Enlargement Negotiations: Ministerial Meeting 11/12 May Commonwealth Briefing
I briefed Commonwealth representatives on Mr Rippon’s behalf as he had to leave very early this morning for Rejkjavik.
2. This had been a long and successful meeting at which satisfactory decisions had been taken
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Transitional Measures for Agriculture
7. We had reached a comprehensive and satisfactory agreement with the Community in this field. The Community had recently laid increasing importance on the principle of acceptance by the candidate countries of Community preference from the time of accession. We have now agreed to this, subject to conditions in four areas, and these have been obtained:
(a) Mechanisms had been devised for forestalling and correcting any disruptions that might occur in the course of the transitional period in our trade with third countries particularly traditional suppliers. We believed that this would be effective.
(b) There would be regulations and mechanisms to correct any disruptions of the UK market during the transitional period arising from unforeseen circumstances. This would be on a model of the safeguards provided during the Community’s own transitional period.
(c) There should be 5 full years for transition to the Community’s agricultural prices and the changeover would take place in 6 movements. We had agreed that the final move should take place on 31 December 1977.
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[UKNA: FCO 30/1133]