EU leaders and foreign ministers meet in Brussels tomorrow to discuss how to strengthen relations with its strategic partners. One of the main issues for the EU to resolve will be convincing Italy to sign a free-trade agreement with South Korea. The UK also wants EU leaders to agree new trade concessions for Pakistan to help it deal with the effects of devastating floods.

Tomorrow’s meeting has been called by Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, who wants leaders to discuss ways of strengthening relations with strategic partners and making more out of summits with third countries. 

The EU’s ability to agree a trade deal with South Korea will be a test of its ability to conclude multilateral agreements even where one member state feel sits economic interests are being threatened.

Steven Vanackere, the foreign minister of Belgium which holds the rotating presidency of the EU’s Council of Ministers has arranged a separate meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in the margins of the summit. He wants to get Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, to drop its objections to the deal so it can be signed at the EU-South Korea summit on 6 October. Talks led by Vanackere last week failed go get Italy to lift its threat to block the deal which the other 26 member states are backing.

Italy is threatening to delay the agreement with South Korea because of fears that its car industry will be overrun by cheaper Korean imports. All 27 member states and the European Parliament must agree the deal before it can come into force. The Italian government is demanding a six-month delay in the implementation of the accord to give its car sector more time to prepare for the stiffer competition.

The trade accord, initialled by EU and Korean negotiators last October, is supposed to generate €19 billion in trade opportunities for EU companies.

The leaders are in Brussels to debate and start work on setting the EU’s foreign policy priorities now that the European External Action Service, which was created under the Lisbon treaty, is set to be up and running by the end of the year.

The aim of Thursday’s talks is to brainstorm ideas on how to make sure the EU’s voice is heard amid the rise of powers like China, India and Brazil, officials said.

Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council who will chair the summit, said the EU had to use the Lisbon treaty to ensure it can act more effectively on the world stage, admitting that past efforts have failed to produce a strong and unified common policy.

“There is a clear need to improve the manner in which the European Union defines and conducts its external policies, in order for it to become a truly effective global actor,” Van Rompuy said in his invitation letter sent to the leaders.

Officials said Thursday’s session would as a priority focus on preparations for summits with Asian nations on the 4-5 of October in Brussels and the 11-12 November Group of 20 summit in Seoul, South Korea. The Asia-Europe talks in Brussels will also include bilateral summits with China and South Korea. A summit with India is planned later this year.

A draft of Thursday’s summit conclusions suggests that issues of key importance for the EU to improve its ties with partners like China include improving market access and investment conditions, intellectual property rights, public procurement, migration and labour standards, exchange rate policies and climate change.

Talks with those so-called “strategic partners” will also include nuclear proliferation, terrorism and piracy.

The EU also wanted to present a more coherent foreign policy at the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly next week (23-24 September) in New York, but diplomatic efforts by EU member states failed to get enough support from others to support enhanced observer status for the EU, which would have allowed Van Rompuy the chance to address the assembly.

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The summit talks will also address ways to help Pakistan in the wake of disastrous monsoon floods that devastated large swathes of the country this past summer. The European Commission has suggested member states look at granting Pakistan a break from certain tariff lines. The trade preferences, which require a waiver from the World Trade Organisation (WTO), could be worth up to €230 million in reduced tariffs on certain goods.

David Cameron, the UK’s prime minister, has written to Van Rompuy, calling on the EU to do more to help Pakistan deal with the effects of the recent floods. He is asking for the EU to agree an “ambitious new partnership” including “serious economic reform and trade”, saying the benefits would be worth more to Pakistan than a sizeable aid package.

Cameron says the EU should make a “concrete political commitment” to improve Pakistan’s access to the EU’s market. He suggests reviewing Pakistan’s market access under the Generalised System of Preferences plus (GSP+) scheme. He says that if that proves too difficult the EU should “consider an alternative” in order to deliver greater market access.

There is resistance to improving Pakistan’s access under the GSP+ scheme from some EU member states, including Portugal and Italy, which make textiles products that compete with Pakistan exports. 

Other possible options also pose difficulties. Lower tariffs on imports of certain goods Pakistan produces would have to be offered to other countries such as China and India. Pakistani exports might not be able to compete with those countries. Granting Pakistan a waiver from agreed tariffs under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules would have to be agreed by other WTO members and could face resistance.  

Van Rompuy is also to brief the leaders on progress made by a special economic taskforce which is supposed to improve the economic governance of the EU in wake of the economic crisis which has left many member states with large deficits.