03/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - Free-trade talks - a European Parliament delegation travels to Tokyo. Negotiations on an EU-Japan free-trade agreement, which are entering their final phase, will be at the very heart of the visit to Tokyo from 4 to 6 November by a delegation from the European Parliament's international trade committee. The delegation will be led by Bernd Lange (S&D, Germany), with Petr Jezek (ALDE, Czech Republic), Artis Pabriks (EPP, Latvia), Jaroslaw Walesa (EPP, Poland), David Martin (S&D, UK), Pedro Silva Pereira (S&D, Portugal), Emma McClarkin (ECR, UK) and Hannu Takkula (ALDE, Finland). It will meet with members of the Japanese government and parliament as well as representatives of business associations, trade unions and environmental NGOs. At their most recent bilateral summit on 29 May, the EU and Japan agreed to speed up the free-trade talks, which opened in November 2012, with the aim of concluding a deal by the end of this year or the start of 2016. The last round of negotiations, the twelfth, took place in Tokyo in mid-September (see EUROPE 11392). (EH)