Brussels, 29/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - At their 23rd annual summit in Tokyo on Friday 29 May, the leaders of the EU and Japan agreed to speed up talks for strategic partnership and free-trade agreement, which were both launched in 2013 and are being carried out in parallel.
“As regards economics, we agreed to speed up negotiations for the EU/Japan partnership in order to reach an agreement in principle before the end of this year”, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after the meeting. “I strongly believe in the necessity to have a free-trade agreement with Japan being concluded as soon as possible, possibly by the end of this year. If not, in the first months of 2016. Speed is important but substance and quality are more important”, said Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who headed up the EU delegation alongside President of the European Council Donald Tusk.
“We discussed how to accelerate the talks”, Juncker said, adding that he had put a five-point action plan to Prime Minister Abe aiming for the “concrete progress” the EU expects of Japan. “We want to be ambitious: eliminating tariffs and relevant non-tariff measures; opening up services, investment and public procurement; fully protecting geographical indications. This trade agreement needs both speed and substance. Progress has been too modest recently”, he stressed.
“We believe that if this deal is worth doing, it's worth doing right. We have to be ambitious on the substance as well as on the timing”, Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told the Japanese business federation, the Keidanren, the day before. “That deal will allow European companies to compete better for business in Japan. It will also allow Japan's train operators to have access to excellent technologies at the best prices. And that means the passengers will ultimately be the winners. This is exactly the kind of benefit that will come from showing similar ambition all across public tenders, whether at the level of cities or central government. Open public procurement markets are of benefit for all”, she stressed.
The EU and Japan have already held ten negotiation rounds since 2013. The next round will be held in Brussels in the week of 6 July. Broadly, the EU expects Japan to offer increased access to its public procurement market and remove the many non-tariff barriers locking out its market. For Japan, the main aim is to secure EU tariff dismantling on its cars and electronic equipment.
The benefits expected from the future EU-Japan agreement are considerable, as it will bring about an increase of EU GDP in the order of 0.6% to 0.8%. EU exports to Japan could increase by more than 30% and Japan's exports to the EU by more than 20%, the Commission estimates. The total level of bilateral trade in goods and services stood at €149 billion in 2014.
Climate: EU wants Japan to be ambitious. On Friday, the European and Japanese negotiators also expressed their hopes of concluding an “ambitious and robust” international climate agreement at the UN conference to be held in Paris this December. “The EU has made an ambitious and specific commitment. We want to see ambition from Japan. It is the world's fourth-largest economy and seventh-largest emitter. Japan cannot pass this issue on to the next generation: we call on Japan to be strong and swift in resolving it”, said Juncker. The European side called upon Tokyo to present an ambitious national target ahead of the G7 summit and before the end of June. (Emmanuel Hagry)