In the communication of the commission that I mentioned, they declare that on top of their priorities now, they have, for this year and early next year, Japan and South Korea. Both countries want—and this was a point discussed even at the G7 meeting in Taormina—to sign trade agreements. Europe is ready for it, but the message from Brussels was: okay, but without any provisions in terms of data protection, the two areas are to be kept separate and working in parallel; the substantive approach on data protection should only be on one side.
On June 13th, 2017. See this statement in context.