CAN reaffirms its interest in establishing free trade area with the European Union

Lima, April 12, 2003. Andean Community Secretary General, Guillermo Fernández de Soto, underscored the importance of the signing, in the near future, of a fourth generation agreement with flexible time limits between the European Union and the Andean Community.

Its negotiation “should be flexible enough to allow us to move decisively toward deepening political dialogue, cooperation and the establishment of a free trade area,” he emphasized.

Fernández de Soto pointed out that the Andean Community is fulfilling its task and will continue to do so “convinced that its relations with Europe and the negotiation of a fourth generation agreement should be a key instrument.”

The Secretary General made these declarations yesterday as he officially closed the Granadua Project. It was started three years ago by the CAN and the European Union Commission for the purpose of continuing to deepen the Customs Union among the Member Countries as a basic element for building the Common Market by the year 2005.

Present at the ceremony were the European Commission’s representative in Peru, Ignacio Sobrino Castello, and the Customs Authorities of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, who also ended their Fifteenth Meeting yesterday.

Fernández de Soto reported that the Andean Community General Secretariat will encourage the approval of fourteen legal Community instruments for modernizing the customs administrations of the Member Countries, based on the technical materials delivered by the Granadua Project.

After expressing his appreciation to the European Union Commission for the support given to Andean integration under the Copenhagen Framework Cooperation Agreement, he stressed that “the General Secretariat today faces the challenge and has the commitment to move ahead with the necessary technical and legal work to draw up eight proposed Decisions and six draft Resolutions.”

He explained that in the context of the construction of the Common Market, the General Secretariat is committed to modernizing the customs systems of the Member Countries. This means developing and implementing the Andean integrated tariff (Arian), drawing up the Community customs code and implementing the Community customs policy, “ among other things.

The Granadua Project’s technical assistance has been delivered in the course of 50 meetings, with the total participation of 320 national technical experts. At the same time, 50 seminars attended by a total of 1,572 national trainer technicians, were held to carry out its training activities.