Canada-EU exchange of offers delayed

From Embassy Magazine: the Canada-EU free trade talks are facing delays.  The negotiators are met last week, but the process is not meeting the benchmarks as fast as desired.  

Most importantly, the exchange of "offers" is being delayed.  Note that this won't necessarily delay the end-point of the process: if the extra time is used to better understand each side's position, resulting in more finely tuned offers, the delay in offers may not delay the date of actual agreement.

No specific mention of patents or pharmaceuticals or IP.  My understanding is that those issues might well be dealt with after the offers - as a political choice by the politicians. 

BTW, the Canada/EU trade negotiations were mentioned during the Intellectual Property Developments conference in London - "At present the EU is negotiating a FTA with Canada, which has attracted criticism in Canada on account of patent linkage." (see IPKat).