Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called for an ambitious free trade agreement between the European Union and Japan, saying before his first visit to the Asian country from Monday that the trade deal should not be a copy of the Trans-Pacific Partnership recently concluded by the United States, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim countries.
"The terms of the TPP deal can't simply be copied and pasted into the EU-Japan agreement," Rutte said in a written interview with Kyodo News prior to his two-day trip to Japan, referring to a difference between the Dutch agricultural sector "made up of relatively small family farms" and large-scale American farms.
The Dutch prime minister, who assumed his post in 2010, said he hopes the TPP agreement reached last month gives "fresh impetus" to the FTA negotiations between Japan and the European Union, and that Dutch "high-quality agricultural and dairy products like veal, milk and cheese will be made more accessible to Japanese consumers."