Sri Lankan Foreign minister had several meetings with the EU to try and restore GSP+

Last year the EU said it would suspend preferential trade status by the fifteenth of August.

Before July

Speaking to the BBC's Sinhala service a spokesman for the EU's Trade Commission, John Clancey, said Brussels would go ahead with the suspension unless Sri Lanka provided a written pledge by the start of July that it would improve human rights.

"The EU temporarily withdrew the GSP-plus trade benefits from Sri Lanka but with the idea of maintaining an open door policy of dialogue so that the GSP plus benefits could return to Sri Lanka”.

will lose millions

The EU said Sri Lanka's GSP-plus trade preferences with the world's biggest consumer market will not be extended unconditionally.

"Of course this has to be according to certain assurances, certain clarifications that are given. If these are not forthcoming then clearly that can have potential consequences, one of which is we'd have to review the situation (at the) start of July, the first of July. I'm saying that the temporary withdrawal of GSP plus, as it stands at the moment, could continue." says the EU spokesman.

civil and political rights

Sri Lanka exports about euro1.24 billion ($1.7 billion) worth of goods to Europe per year. Losing the trade preferences would cost the country some euro78 million ($96 million), based on its 2008 exports.

An EU report last year said Sri Lanka is breaching United Nations commitments to respect civil and political rights and violating a convention against torture and a charter on children's rights.