Andean Community of Nations suspends trade negotiations with EU

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

QUITO, Nov. 10 (Chinese media) -- The Andean Community of Nations (CAN) has

decided to suspend negotiations on a trade agreement with the European Union

(EU), said reports reaching here from Brussels on Monday.

CAN requested to postpone talks with the EU scheduled for Tuesday in

Brussels as its members need more time to achieve consensus over the trade deal

and reach a common negotiating position, according to reports from the

Ecuadorian embassy in Brussels.

However, foreign ministers of Colombia and Peru Jaime Bermudez and Jose

Garcia Belaunde will meet with EU External Relations Commissioner Benita

Ferrero-Waldner respectively on Tuesday.

The two foreign ministers will also meet with representatives from the

European Commission (EC), the executive body of the EU.

Talks over a trade pact between CAN and the EU stalled in June after the EU

agreed to negotiate the accord separately with Colombia and Peru.

Peru and Colombia want bilateral negotiations with the EU, but Bolivia and

Ecuador maintain that member countries have to forge a common front in this

regard and negotiate with the EU in a single voice.

In mid-October, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said at a CAN meeting

held in Ecuador that CAN, which groups Peru, Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador, is

definitely able to move forward in its negotiations with the EU "bloc to bloc,"

but it must adjust to the "different speed" of each member country.

Foreign ministers of the CAN member states will meet on Nov. 13in Lima so

as to remove some of the obstacles to a final agreement, said the reports.

Exports from the Andean bloc to the EU totaled 11 billion U.S. dollars in

2007, mostly raw materials and farm products such as bananas, while EU's exports

to the bloc exceeded 8 billion dollars, according to CAN data.