OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 10.00pm.
SOUTH Africa’s Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin and European Union commissioner Joan Deus Pinheiro met at Midrand near Johannesburg at the weekend to give troubled trade talks a push.
South African and EU negotiating teams have being holding talks on a proposed free trade accord for over three years, but differences have kept an agreement at bay.
Erwin and Pinheiro said after meeting on Saturday that there had been agreement on how to move the talks on and that they will report to their principals about their discussions.
Pinheiro said: “It’s a very difficult technical and political issue and therefore we must be prudent, cautious with regards the outcome. But we still remain committed to finalise the agreement during the [European] autumn as our heads of state and government decided in Cardiff when they met President Nelson Mandela.”
Erwin commended the negotiating teams but said: “There comes a moment when politicians must take their responsibility and identify a way forward to achieve the objectives.”
Talks floundered in Brussels last month on, among other things, the EU’s insistence that the names “port” and “sherry” no longer be used by South African producers. Three days of trade talks which ended on October 16 also failed to resolve an impasse over the EU’s tariff reduction offer for agricultural products.