Pedro Silva Pereira, Rapporteur. – Mr President, as standing rapporteur I would like to react to this last-minute request by saying that I don’t see any reason whatsoever for a postponement.

(Applause)

In fact, if we listen carefully to the request we see this is not really a request for postponement, because the reasoning is against the agreement as it is.

Now the agreement has been known about since December 2017. We heard all the stakeholders, we asked for clarifications from the Japanese Government and we got those clarifications. We have had a long discussion in this Parliament, and the Japanese Parliament has already taken a decision. We are ready to do the same, and I say we should do it now, deciding on both the agreement and the progressive resolution that we have before us.