Central America Seeks Trade Talks With EU Next Year

by Leroy Baker, Tax-News.com, New York

07 July 2003

The six nations that make up the Central American Integration Area, including Panama and Costa Rica, are pressing the European Union to commence trade talks between the two organisations by next year with a view to an agreement being reached by 2005.

The talks would be a follow up to the discussions between the regional groups last May which were dubbed the 'political dialogue and co-operation agreement', and final agreement would become part of a larger 'Association Agreement' such as that negotiated recently with Chile and Mexico.

However, the EU Commission has raised doubts that talks will take until after the current round of WTO negotiations according to Commission trade spokesperson Arancha Gonzalez and it is therefore unlikely that the a January 2005 deadline will be met.

Ms Gonzalez also noted the United States' preference for negotiating trade deals with Central American nations on a bi-lateral basis, such as the recently announced trade talks with Panama, as opposed to a regional basis which she says raised doubts about the future of further regional integration.

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