PM Nguyen Tan Dung and European Council President José Manuel Barroso

(VOV) - Representatives of 27 EU member countries approved a partnership and cooperation agreement (PCA) with Vietnam at the EU Foreign Ministers Meeting on Monday in Brussels, Belgium. The PCA specifies a comprehensive cooperation framework for trade, investment, jurisprudence, peacekeeping, and international security. The PCA, which was initialed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and European Council President José Manuel Barroso in October, 2010, after two years of negotiations, is expected to bring the Vietnam-EU relationship into a new period of greater cooperation.