Visiting German leader unruffled by foot-and-mouth checks

By BRIAN FALLOW

German President Johannes Rau was given an early taste of this country's wish to keep its meat clean when he arrived yesterday.

The German head of state and his entourage had to clear biosecurity precautions at Wellington Airport - an onboard inspection, and x-rays and sniffer dogs for the luggage.

But Dr Rau, who began a state visit to New Zealand yesterday, was unperturbed by such precautions.

With cases of foot and mouth in Britain, France and the Netherlands, the danger remained that it would spread to Germany, too, although, thankfully, it had not so far, he said.

Dr Rau also understands the anger engendered here by groundless claims in March, swiftly corrected, that the sheep disease scrapie was present in New Zealand.

"I do understand the anger this led to, because there is nothing worse than creating a sort of hysteria that can have lingering effects," he said in an interview with the Herald.

He is expected to express regret for the incident in a speech to the New Zealand German Business Council in Auckland on Wednesday.

Dr Rau said he hoped climate-change talks due to take place in Bonn in July would achieve progress in resolving the stalemate between countries including New Zealand and those in Europe which wish to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and the United States, supported by Australia, which does not.

It was imperative that means be found to achieve the aims of Kyoto, even if that agreement itself did not come into force.

Dr Rau, who is 70, was elected Germany's president two years ago. The role more closely resembles that of the Governor-General than the Prime Minister.

For more than 20 years Dr Rau had been the Social Democrat Minister-President (premier) of North Rhine-Westphalia - the state which includes Germany's traditional industrial heartland.

He and his wife, Christina - who is 26 years younger than him and whom he married in 1982 - prefer to live in their own home rather than in the presidential palace.

It was better for their three teenage children, he said.

After a round of official functions in Wellington today, including a wreath-laying ceremony at the National War Memorial, the President will spend tomorrow in the south, visiting a sheep farm near Arrowtown and a Gibbston Valley winery.

The state visit ends in Auckland on Wednesday. Dr Rau will inaugurate a German studies lectureship at the Auckland University and open a new information centre to promote the exchange of students and research scholars.

Herald Online feature: Foot-and-mouth disaster

World organisation for animal health

UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

The European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Pig Health/Foot and Mouth feature

Virus databases online