Lima, July 13, 2006. The High-Level Meeting between the Andean Community and the European Union ended today on a successful note with the conclusion of the “joint assessment” of the Andean integration process and the defining of the bases for the negotiation of a strategic association and free trade agreement between the two blocs. 

"In this way, we have fulfilled the agreements made by our Presidents at the Summits of Vienna and Quito and have cleared the way for the forthcoming negotiation of the Association Agreement,” the Secretary General of the Andean Community, Ambassador Allan Wagner Tizón, pointed out today in Brussels.   

The agreement signed today by the Chairman of the CAN Commission and Bolivia’s Vice-Minister of Economic Relations and Trade, María Luisa Ramos, and the Deputy Directors General of Foreign Affairs and of Trade of the European Commission, Hervé Jouanjean and Karl Falkenberg, respectively, emphasizes with satisfaction the results achieved and states that the “necessary internal consultations” will be carried out for the negotiation of the Association Agreement. 

"We trust that the European Commission will request authorization from the Council of Ministers of the European Union in September, so that the negotiation of the Association Agreement may start before the year is out and end by the next EU – Latin America Biregional Summit, scheduled to be held in Peru in May 2008,” Wagner concluded.