EU official: First round of talks scheduled for Dec 6-9

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysia-European Union Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is set to be concluded by 2012, said EU Ambassador and head of delegation to Malaysia, Vincent Piket.

He said the first round of the FTA meeting was scheduled for Dec 6-9 in Brussels, Belgium, while at the same time the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) talks will be held in Putrajaya.

On Oct 6, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso officially launched the negotiations for the Malaysia-EU FTA and Malaysia-EU Partnership and Cooperation Agreement in Brussels on the sidelines of the Eighth Asian-Europe Meeting (ASEM).

Najib headed the Malaysian delegation to the two-day ASEM Summit hosted by Belgium. It was the first visit to an EU member nation by a Malaysian Prime Minister, marking the next phase of expanding Malaysia-EU relations.

The confidence is there to conclude the session and "we are on the right track," according to Piket.

"We have been promoting better understanding between both parties. It has just started and we are busy fixing for the first round of negotiation," he said at a media conference with selected media organisations, in conjunction with the visit of the EU parliamentary delegation to Malaysia yesterday.

Also present at the event were EU parliamentary delegation chairman Dr Werner Langen and second vice-chairman Ivo Belet.

Piket said the EU-Malaysia FTA would provide a long-term, stable and legal framework for ties between the two partners.

"The FTA will remove tariffs on the near totality of goods, will open up trade in services (beyond the level of commitment undertaken by EU and Malaysia in the WTO), will boost bilateral investments by providing a legally secure framework for trade relations, thus providing legal certainty and predictability to economic operators," he said.

The EU is Malaysia's fourth largest trading partner. Malaysia is EU's second individual trading partner in Asean.

Bilateral trade in goods reached 23 billion euros (RM99.3bil) in 2009. Although EU exports grew 1.2% on average a year between 2005 and 2009, Malaysia has consistently recorded a trade surplus of about five billion euros with the EU over the same period.

The EU-Malaysia PCA, when finalised, will provide the state-of-the-art strategic framework for enhanced cooperation by adding significant value to EU-Malaysia bilateral relations.

On the PCA, the parliamentary delegation chairman Langen said it would provide opportunities to expand the EU's engagement in a number of areas of mutual interest with Malaysia such as taxation and customs; intellectual property rights; combating terrorism and transnational crime; corruption; good governance; human rights; migration; trafficking in persons; non-proliferation and disaster risk management.

The agreement will further strengthen EU-Malaysia policy dialogue on environment, green technology and climate change. It will also establish a more intensive platform to exchange views and enhance cooperation on global and multilateral matters.

The PCA would be the EU's first bilateral framework agreement with Malaysia.

- Bernama