(Brussels) “Europe and Japan are sending a message to the world about the future of open, fair trade. We are opening a new 635-million-people’s market, accounting for nearly one third of the world’s Gross Domestic Product: the European and Japanese populations have never been so close”. With these words, the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, marked today’s enforcement of the trade partner agreement between the European Union and Japan. “The new agreement will provide consumers with a wider choice and lower prices, will protect the great European products in Japan and the Japanese ones in Europe, will provide small businesses on both sides with the option to extend their business in a completely new market”. Juncker adds that such trade agreement “will make European businesses save one billion euros a year in duties and will enormously boost the current trade between the two sides”. “Our agreement mainly shows that trade is not just a matter of quotas and tariffs, or of millions and billions, it is a matter of values, principles and fairness. The agreement makes sure our principles in such areas as work, safety, climate and consumer protection are taken as a global standard of excellence. All this is possible only if we partner with an ideal partner, from whom we are separated by thousands of kilometres but with whom we share friendship and values”.