Brussels, 20/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday in Brussels, the European Union and Switzerland began a new round of bilateral negotiations, with the first two rounds of talks. The trade in processed agricultural products being on the menu of Wednesday's talks in Brussels, customs fraud was broached on Thursday in Bern. The Swiss and European negotiators had formally launched this round of negotiation on 5 July, after having received a green light from their governments. The negotiations should cover ten fields, with a first timetable for the questions on which the two parties already have a mandate for negotiation and hope to conclude the talks before the end of the year, namely: (1) processed agricultural products: an agreement for a certain liberalisation of trade for processed agricultural products (chocolates, soups, etc.) already exists, with a system of compensation for the price differences for raw materials and a list of products exonerated from duties. The aim of the negotiations is to simplify the compensation system (for Switzerland, the solution would be to move to a system based on the simple difference between the Swiss and European price, instead of basing itself on the price on the world market) and to review the list of exonerated products. The first meeting allowed each party to present their starting position, underline the observers; (2) cooperation in the fight against customs fraud: the negotiation should meet again at the end of September and probably in November to negotiate an agreement on the fight against customs fraud, which the Commission would like to extend to a wider scope than that favoured by Switzerland.
(3) Switzerland's participation in the European Environment Agency and Eurostat: these two dossiers should be concluded quite rapidly, once the question of Switzerland's financial contribution has been settled, say Community sources.
Discussions prior to the opening of negotiations continue for the other chapters (pensions, services, savings tax, Schengen and Dublin conventions, training and youth, and Media programme). The European Commission is expected to try to present to the Council proposals of negotiating briefs for most issues by the end of the year, but everything depends on how discussions develop on subjects as sensitive as Swiss participation to the Schengen Convention or savings tax.