Secretary General of the Andean Community on official visit to the European Union

Lima, October 9. The Secretary General of the Andean Community (CAN), Sebastián Alegrett, is to make an official visit to the European Union (EU) from October 10 -12, for meetings with several authorities of the European Council, Commission, and Parliament.

The aim of these meetings is to review progress made on the study of the present situation and future prospects of economic and trade relationships between the CAN and the EU, with a view to the eventual negotiating of an Agreement of Association.

This study was set in motion by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the two groups at the Vilmoura (Portugal) meeting in February 2000, when the "positive development of political dialogue" became apparent, and the "priority interest in strengthening links" was stressed.

Alegrett has meetings scheduled with the Vice-President of the European Commission for Energy and Transport, Loyola de Palacio; with Commissioner Christopher Patten, responsible for Foreign Affairs within the European Commission; and with the Commission's Director General of Foreign Affairs, Guy Legras.

He will also meet the Permanent Representative of Spain to the EU, Ambassador Javier Conde; as well as Deputies Elmar Brok and Antonio Di Pietro, who are, respectively, the Chairman of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Commission, and Chairman of its Delegation for Relations with the Countries of South America and Mercosur.

Alegrett's visit has been organised and coordinated by the Venezuelan Embassy in Belgium, Luxembourg and Mission to the European Union, in exercise of the Pro Tempore Presidency of the Andean Community.

In the nineteen-nineties, the EU and the CAN developed an institutional architecture resting on four pillars: 1) Political Dialogue (Declaration of Rome, 1996); 2) Access to the European market through the Drug Scheme of the Generalized System of Preferences, whereby the majority of agricultural, fishing and industrialised Andean products enter the single European market without paying tariffs; 3) Frame Agreement on Third Generation Cooperation, signed in 1993; and 4) Specialised Dialogue on drugs.

The European Union is the second trade partner of the CAN, after the United States, with a total trade figure of approximately 15.4 thousand million dollars in 1998.

CAN exports to the European market in that same year accounted for some 7 thousand million dollars. The main items exported were agricultural products (47%), chemicals and plastics (29%), precious stones (5%) non-ferrous materials and manufactured goods (6%), and textiles and garments (3%).