Brussels, 30/10/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 28 October, the European Commission adopted a report for submission to the Council on negotiating access of EU firms to third country public procurement markets (areas covered by Directive 2004/17/EC on water sector, energy, transport and postal services). The report provides information on continuing negotiations at the WTO the latter's public procurement agreement (PPA) in particular. It also looks at developments in the public services markets in the European Economic Area, now worth EUR 460bn, as well as questions of access to public procurement markets via stabilisation and association agreements in neighbourhood policy. The report also provides information about the current and future bilateral negotiations, particularly with Central America, the Andean Community, South Korea, Canada and China and examines the path to follow towards public procurement opportunities. The report is available at: http: //ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/docs/international/20092810_report_fr.pdf (E.H.)