European Union and South Korean leaders are to meet in Seoul on Saturday to take stock of progress made in previous talks over a free trade agreement and to update a framework agreement on trade and cooperation that has been in force for eight years, according to dpa. Others topics to be covered in this summit are cooperation in the fight against climate change and the global economic crisis. Leading the delegations would be South Korean President Lee Myung- bak and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso as well as Czech President Vaclav Klaus as EU Council president. Barroso and Klaus met in Seoul on Friday after the EU-Russia summit in the Russia's Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk. Barroso characterized South Korea as a like-minded country with which the EU could form an "alliance of values." The signing of the proposed trade agreement with South Korea would create the basis for a considerable upgrading of relations to an increasingly important Asian partner, the EU delegation said in a statement. Other participants from the EU external affairs commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and trade commissioner Catherine Ashton. Ashton is to discuss still unresolved trade topics with South Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong Hoon. In March, South Korean chief negotiator Lee Hye Min said a "provisional" agreement had been reached on almost all pending issues after nearly two years of talks. The greatest problem lay in the repayment of tariffs in Korea. Due to competitive considerations, the EU is unwilling to allow any future agreement to cover the practice whereby businesses receive back tariffs paid on imported products that were to be processed for export. According to Korea's Yonhap news agency citing the country's Ministry of Trade, it is however improbable that an agreement will be reached this weekend. Negotiations began in May 2007, a few months after South Korea concluded a free trade deal with the United States. The EU is South Korea's second-largest trading partner after China, and the biggest investor in South-East Asia's fourth-largest economy. The trade volume between the 27-nation bloc and Seoul amounted to an estimated 98 billion dollars in 2008.
