Brussels, 26/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - By the end of the month of October, the European Commission will adopt a negotiation mandate for trade agreements with four major countries of the Arab spring - Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia - Karel De Gucht announced, further to an informal meeting of the European trade ministers in Brussels on Monday 26 September (see other article). The aim is to speed up negotiations on market access for agricultural products, to start negotiations on the standardisation of industrial products and to forge ahead with talks on services and investment, the trade commissioner added. De Gucht stated that there will be a package of negotiation directives for the four countries, but in practice, obviously, the negotiations will not be identical.
As regards Libya, the commissioner warned that “we will have to wait a bit longer; it will take a bit more time”. Before the events that shook Libya, negotiations on a cooperation agreement had begun, but we must start them again on a different basis, De Gucht explained. However; in general, we will have to be realistic, because a number of countries liberated in the Arab spring “are still in their post-revolution period”, the trade commissioner said. “We can prepare negotiations, but we must be aware that certain countries would prefer to wait for their new democratically elected governments to be in place. We must also bear in mind the institutional capacity” of these countries, he concluded. (LC/transl.fl)