Brussels, December 14, 2007.- With the decision to deliver a road map for deepening Andean integration this coming February, the Second Round of Negotiation of an Association Agreement between the countries of the Andean Community (CAN) and those of the European Union (EU) concluded in Brussels today. 

To that end, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia will make a joint effort to have ready for presentation to the EU the road map that will serve to build up the Andean Community for the negotiation of the agreement in the area of trade.  

Luis Guillermo Plata, Colombian Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism hailed this initiative “that will enable us to take determined steps not only toward a much broader Andean integration process, but ones that will lead this bloc-to-bloc negotiation into a safe harbor.”  

Plata stressed that this is one of Colombia’s most important negotiations because 31 countries are involved, four of them grouped into the CAN and 27 into the EU, with a total population of 591 million inhabitants, of which 493 million live in the European countries.  

Insofar as the three rounds planned for 2008 are concerned, one will be held in Quito in April, another in July in Brussels and the last in October, in a city and country of the CAN yet to be determined.  

In his assessment of the second round, held all this week in the offices of the European Union in Brussels, Ricardo Duarte Duarte, who headed Colombia’s Negotiating Team, announced its success.   “We moved ahead in all 14 working committees on trade; the groundwork was laid for preparing joint texts that will reflect the interests of both blocs and that will serve as a basic input for the Third Round to be held on April 21, 2008 in Quito.”  

"In the course of the round that concluded today, we reached agreements for the preparation of texts and consolidation of positions that both parties will carry with them to the Quito round.  Our work this week has contributed to the negotiation process and will allow us from this moment on to develop the disciplines and commitments that will be reflected in the texts,” Duarte explained.  

As a matter of fact, insofar as trade is concerned, the respective offers of goods are expected to be ready by this coming March 14 and the negotiating teams may hold videoconferences for that purpose.  Rupert Schlegelmilch, Head of the EU’s Negotiating Team, called upon the CAN countries “not to forget about” their respective tasks aimed at the proposal of texts.