CAN Vice-Ministers of Foreign
Affairs and of Trade prepare for
first round of negotiations with
EU
Lima, August 17, 2007.- The four
Member Countries of the Andean
Community began preparations in
Lima for the First Round of
Negotiations of the CAN-EU
Association Agreement scheduled to
take place in Colombia in
September. These were highlighted
by a wide-ranging and fruitful
dialogue and intense deliberations
on aspects relating to the
political, cooperative and trade
pillars.
The First Preparatory High-Level
Meeting for the First Round of
Negotiations was held at the CAN
General Secretariat headquarters
on Wednesday, August 15 under the
chairmanship of Eduardo Muñoz,
Colombia’s Vice-Minister of
Foreign Trade, and on Thursday the
16th and Friday the 17th
under the direction of Camilo
Reyes, the Vice-Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Colombia, the
country currently occupying the
presidency of the Andean
Community.
The Colombian Vice-Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Camilo Reyes,
called the meeting “highly
fruitful” because consensuses were
reached and the participants were
able to get an idea of the amount
of work needed by the Andean
countries to ensure positive
results at the end of the road.
"We were also able to see that
this exercise helps improve our
own internal processes,” he went
on to add.
The CAN Secretary General, Freddy
Ehlers, for his part, emphasized
that the meeting had offered a
further chance to reveal an Andean
Community that is united and
highly politically cohesive as it
prepares to launch some
negotiations without precedent in
its history that will open up
major possibilities for our
countries’ social and political
development.
In preparing for the First Round
of Negotiations of the Association
Agreement planned for this coming
September, the Vice-Ministers
appointed Andean spokesmen for the
negotiating groups and subgroups,
established methodology for the
exchange of important information
for the negotiations of the
political dialogue, cooperation
and trade groups and made headway
in laying down guidelines for each
group’s negotiations.
The high-level representatives of
the Andean countries also agreed
to continue deepening and
perfecting Andean positions for
the first round by holding
videoconferences starting next
week on trade and political
dialogue issues, to be followed by
preparatory meetings in person
prior to the First Round.
High-level representatives of the
Ministries of Foreign Affairs and
of Trade of the four Andean
countries participated in the
meeting. Bolivia was represented
by Pablo Guzmán, Vice-Minister of
Economic Relations and Foreign
Trade of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, and Pablo Solón, the
Government’s Plenipotentiary
Representative for Trade and
Integration Matters; Ecuador by
Antonio Ruales, Vice-Minister of
Foreign Trade and Integration, and
Humberto Jiménez, Director General
of Integration and Trade
Negotiations of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Trade and
Integration; Peru by Luis Alonso
García, Vice-Minister of Foreign
Trade and Tourism, and Javier
Paulinich, Director General of
International Trade Negotiations.
And Colombia by the two
Vice-Ministers cited above,
together with Ricardo Duarte, who
will be in charge of that
country’s trade negotiations. In
the case of the CAN General
Secretariat, the participants were
the Secretary General, Freddy
Ehlers, and the Directors Adalid
Contreras, Alfredo Fuentes and Ana
María Reátegui.
