Public lecture by Professor Hubert Zimmerman from University of Marburg, Germany, took place in the National Library of Singapore on 24 February with the assistance of the EU Centre in Singapore. The Lecturer focused on the peculiarities of the EU negotiations with the ASEAN and members states of this Association. Prof. Zimmerman analyzed the EU approaches on the negotiating of FTAs from the European values standpoint and noted that political component of such negotiations has been strengthened recently.
Ambassador of Ukraine Pavlo Sultansky, who took part in the discussion, informed the audience on the current state and perspectives of Ukraine-EU and Ukraine-Singapore FTAs negotiations and referred to corresponding commercial and political components correlation. The German professor pointed out that unlike the US approaches, the EU is more predisposed to give priority to commercial component in negotiating trade issues.