Speed up Asean-EU FTA talks
Agence France Presse | Jan 14, 2009
Speed up Asean-EU FTA talks
ASEAN and the European Union should adopt a new approach in negotiations for a free-trade agreement (FTA) in an effort to speed up the talks, Britain’s trade minister said on Wednesday.
The new approach means the EU can negotiate agreements with individual Asean states instead of talking to the 10-nation bloc as a single entity, British Minister for Trade and Investment Gareth Thomas said in an interview with AFP.
The bilateral FTAs can be developed into a regional agreement that will include more countries, said Mr Thomas, who was in Singapore on the first leg of a South-east Asian tour.
The Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) and the EU agreed in May 2007 to launch negotiations for a region-wide free-trade accord.
But the talks have been beset with problems, including EU concerns over violations of human rights in Asean member Myanmar.
’A new approach to the Asean-EU FTA may be required,’ Mr Thomas said after talks with his Singaporean counterpart, Lim Hng Kiang.
’We may have to start a fast-track process... as a route to ultimately getting a regional agreement and Singapore is an obvious country to be part of that fast-track process.’
Mr Thomas said he will bring up the proposal during a meeting of EU trade ministers in Brussels later this month.
He said there was a realisation among some EU and Asean countries that the talks were not moving as fast as they would have liked.
Asean groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
