Brussels

EUROPEAN Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said that the EU and US can still reach a free trade agreement before US President Barack Obama leaves office in January 2017, pledging an intensification of talks in the coming months.

"That is our Plan A - we're working very hard from both sides to achieve that," Ms Malmstroem said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Washington on Thursday. "Content is more important than speed, but our aim and our sincere wish is to do everything we can before the end of the Obama administration."