Japan has been pressing the European Union hard to announce the launch of formal negotiations towards a deal at a bilateral summit in Brussels May 27 and 28.

"There will be no deal as such" at the summit, Europe's trade commissioner Karel de Gucht told reporters after hosting a meeting of trade ministers from the 27-nation bloc.

But the summit will "offer a high-level impetus to start negotiations," he said.

The EU was still looking to Japan to scrap non-tariff barriers, including on food, while offering better general access to European firms, he said.

"I'm not interested in a paper deal but one that would bring real market access," the commissioner added.

During a brief stop in Brussels this month by Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto, his spokesman said Tokyo hoped for a quick trade agreement to ease recovery from the quake and tsunami.

"The economy is our most important task," Satu Satoh told AFP. "The launch of an economic trade agreement now would be a good gesture."

French Trade Minister Pierre Lellouche, in Brussels on Friday for talks with his EU counterparts, said his country wanted to see "a political sign" from Tokyo before going ahead with a deal.

Paris expected "tangible signs, without which it would be very difficult to imagine opening negotiations for a free trade deal, which on the other hand we believe is necessary.

"We back the principle of a free trade deal between the EU and Japan," he said. But Tokyo must "proceed with certain difficult changes to its working methods regarding market access."

An EU diplomat told AFP that Japan had made "important and positive moves in the field of government procurement, but we need more on trade barriers."

Officials from both sides are currently working at defining a "scoping exercise" -- a bilateral to-do list scheduling the obstacles to overcome before the launch of free trade negotiations.

That is expected to be agreed at the summit, though a diplomat said work to get through the exercise could take months.

On prompting by Britain, leaders of the 27-nation bloc in March called for the speedy launch of negotiations for a free trade deal to assist disaster-struck Japan -- but on the proviso that Tokyo move to lift restrictions to trade.

Trade ties between the two have consistently shown a strong surplus in favour of Japan -- the EU currently being Japan's third largest trade partner while Japan is Europe's fifth largest.

Tokyo's better record "is partly a reflection of continuing market access problems for foreign firms in Japan," a European Commission report said this year.

That view from the EU's executive arm is shared by European business leaders, who say Tokyo is failing to offer companies real market access.

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