Brussels, 12/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - The high level annual meeting between the EU and Japan on financial issues took place, Monday in Brussels, "in a friendly atmosphere", which allowed for a "fruitful" global overview of the respective development and international development in this field. With regards to financial services, the consolations (to which assisted for the first time representatives from the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA)), covered the exchange of information at the European, Japanese and international level, the proposals recently put forward in the framework of the bilateral dialogue on deregulation and sector based negotiations underway within the WTO. The high ranking civil servants also raised macro-economic developments: importance of EMU, oil price rise, slowdown of the American economy, recovery in Japan, position on taxation, etc.