London, 16 July 1971
Confidential
Australia and the EEC
I think Mr Rippon would like to see this letter from Sir M James in Canberra. 1 His conversation with Mr Anthony did not produce anything very new, but may I think have done some good. Two things in it are particularly interesting. First (last sentence of paragraph 3 of record), Mr Anthony’s admission that the fuss he is making is primarily directed to alarming Australian producers so as to make them take the necessary steps to diversify production. Second (last sentence of paragraph 4), Mr Anthony’s admission that it would be wiser to make the best rather than the worst of the undertaking about action to deal with ‘abrupt dislocation’.
2. On the whole, it is difficult to refute the Australian case—such as it is. We had hoped to get clearer and more precise arrangements for running down third country supplies over the transitional period. We told Commonwealth representatives this, e.g. on 22 April.2 We did not give them much if any notice of the switch we felt obliged to make at the Ministerial meeting on 11 to 13 May when we had to accept the principle of Community preference from the start.
3. Our offence, if it be one, is made worse in Mr Anthony’s eyes by the fact that he seems to have been told by representatives of the Six (paragraph 2 of the record) that ‘we had made virtually no effort to secure better arrangements for third country suppliers’. Unjust though it is, it is not uncharacteristic that representatives of the Six should have given Mr Anthony this impression; it was an easy way to get themselves off the hook, though it would have been fairer for them to have told Mr Anthony that the Community had made it absolutely clear to us that the acceptance of Community preference from the start was a sine qua non of agreement on agricultural transitional arrangements.
4. In paragraph 7 of this covering letter Sir M James asks us for comments on his interpretation of events, given in the preceding paragraph. I think that in replying to this letter, I should give him such comments. So when Mr Rippon has seen this letter, I think [we] should do some research. It would be useful to look at the papers and establish so far as we can just how long we maintained our efforts to get better transitional arrangements for third country suppliers, and when and how we switched. The general picture is pretty clear; but to investigate things in detail might help. So far as I recollect it, the fact is that the Community and the commission made it pretty clear to us informally for a pretty long time that we had no hope at all of getting continuing degressive quota arrangements for e.g. Australian sugar after 1974 or Australian butter after 1972. But just how long and how hard did we fight for this? I think a case could be made for the contention that we ‘made virtually no effort’; but if so, it was because it was so absolutely manifest that no amount of effort would produce a better result. It would only have held things up for a long period without producing a different result. And as things were going by the time of the Ministerial meeting of 11 to 13 May, with the date for the Prime Minister’s visit to Paris already fixed, we judged it essential, and I think absolutely rightly, to bite the bullet of Community preference and did so. Had we not done so at that Ministerial meeting, the Prime Minister’s visit to Paris a week or ten days later could not have been the success it was.
5. I think our papers should be enough to show how the position developed; but probably my eventual reply to Sir M James should be cleared with MAFF.
1 Document 297.
2 Document 277.
[UKNA: FCO 24/1055]