Abstract
The predecessor article to the present provided a systemic overview of all of the European Union’s regional trade agreements (RTAs). Rather than follow the approach of providing a detailed update to that overview, the present article concentrates on analysing the EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
The views reflected in this contribution are personal, and should not necessarily be attributed to the European Commission. The author would like to thank Justyna Lasik for her assistance in the preparation of this article.
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Notes
- 1.
Cremona, The European Union and Regional Trade Agreements, EYIEL 1 (2010), p. 245.
- 2.
On 1 December 2009, with the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon the European Community was replaced by the European Union. As a consequence, while some of the matters discussed in this article took place before 1 December 2009, this article uses the term European Union (EU).
- 3.
The initialled text is publicly available at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=443&serie=273&langId=en.
- 4.
The European Commission adopted the proposals for the Council decisions to sign and conclude the agreement on 9 April 2010 (COM(2010) 136 final and COM(2010) 137 final). The consent of the European Parliament is required after signature and before conclusion. Given that the agreement is considered to be a mixed agreement, it will also be necessary to have it ratified pursuant to the constitutions of the Member States. This means that the definitive entry into force of the agreement will take some time. The Commission proposed that substantial parts of the agreement would be provisionally applied pursuant to Article 218(5) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).
- 5.
Commission Communication Global Europe: Competing in the World, COM(2006) 567 final, 4.10.2006. The other countries identified as part of the Global Europe strategy were India and the ASEAN countries.
- 6.
The Treaty establishing the European Community, before it was revised by the Treaty of Lisbon to become the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, also foresaw that the “assent” of the European Parliament for certain international agreements would be required when certain conditions were met (Article 300(3) second subparagraph). It was likely that the EU-Korea FTA would have fallen under those conditions in any event, before this question was rendered moot by the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. However, the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon has brought about a sea change in the importance of the European Parliament to the conduct of trade policy; its consent is required for all trade agreements, rather than a very limited few, and it is co-legislator with the Council for all trade legislation whereas previously the Council had legislated alone.
- 7.
Copenhagen Economics/Francois, Economic Impact of a Potential Free Trade Agreement between the EU and South Korea, available at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2007/march/tradoc_134017.pdf.
- 8.
As regards ASEAN, the initial approach of seeking a region-to-region agreement was suspended, in favour of seeking bilateral agreements. Negotiations on an EU-Singapore FTA were the first to be opened in early 2010.
- 9.
Since 1 December 2009 the “Trade Policy Committee”.
- 10.
It is to be noted that the structure of the agreement is different from that typically negotiated by the European Union in that the numbering is not sequential, but by chapter, and annexes are attached to chapters, rather than to the agreement as a whole. The structure is rather similar to a US FTA.
- 11.
Note that the date of entry into force of the agreement is the date of provisional application of the agreement, if it is provisionally applied. See Article 15.10.5(d) of the Agreement.
- 12.
Economic Partnership Agreement between the CARIFORUM States, of the one part, and the European Community and its Member States, of the other part, OJ 2008 L 289/1.
- 13.
WTO Document negs 286(Job no[1].8274), dated 19 November 2007, available at http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_E/gproc_e/gp_gpa_e.htm (last visited on 16 April 2010).
- 14.
See Document TN/MA/W/88 of 23 July 2007, “Non-tariff barriers – Proposal on Procedures for the Facilitation of Solutions to NTBs”, proposed by the African Group, Canada, the European Communities, the LDC Group, the NAMA-11 Group of Countries, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan and Switzerland.
- 15.
See Commission proposal for a Council Decision on the signing on behalf of the European Community and provisional application of the Framework Agreement between the European Community and its Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Korea, of the other part (COM(2009) 631 final) of 18 November 2009.
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Brown, C.M. (2011). The European Union and Regional Trade Agreements: A Case Study of the EU-Korea FTA. In: Herrmann, C., Terhechte, J. (eds) European Yearbook of International Economic Law 2011. European Yearbook of International Economic Law(), vol 2. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14432-5_12
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