EU, Japan Aim to Speed Up Trade Talks

EU and Japanese officials are hoping to speed up negotiations for a bilateral trade pact, officials said this week, ahead of a key April deadline for reviewing the talks’ progress.

The EU and Japan have held three rounds of trade talks since the negotiations formally kicked off in March, with the latest of these being held last month in Brussels.

Under the terms of the European Commission’s negotiating mandate, the EU could bring the talks to a halt in April 2014 if it deems that Japan has not made the necessary progress in railways, urban transport roadmaps, and dismantling non-tariff barriers. The latter are meant to be removed in parallel to reductions in tariffs on the EU side.