New CAN-EU Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement to be ready before the year is out

Lima, May 12, 2003. Andean Community Secretary General, Guillermo Fernández de Soto, expressed his assurance that CAN and the European Union will have the new Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement ready for signing before the year is out.

“The satisfactory results obtained at the Brussels meeting clearly pointed up the advantages of the joint negotiation strategy adopted by the Andean countries,” he explained, going on to add that it is quite likely, given the momentum achieved in the first round of negotiations held last week in Brussels that a consensus will be reached on the full text of the agreement at the meeting scheduled for this coming October.

The new Agreement will guarantee dialogue and cooperation at all levels, from technical assistance in improving our trade, to the efforts to control terrorism and the worldwide drug problem, sustainable development, migration, conflict resolution, human rights, disaster prevention and the war on poverty, among other things.

“Its signing should lead to the negotiation of an Association Agreement that would encompass a Free Trade Accord,” the Secretary General concluded.