Free
Trade Agreements
For information on EU Free
Trade agreements with Latin America
For information on EU Free
Trade agreements with North Africa
and the Mediterranean
For information on EU Free
Trade agreements with the Gulf region
Regional
Trade Agreements (RTAs) can be defined, broadly speaking,
as agreements between two or more countries and/or trading
blocs to enter into preferential trading arrangements with
each other (usually beginning with tariff preferences but
often extending into services, intellectual property rights,
government procurement and other areas). These may take the
form of:
free trade areas - where
reciprocal preferences are exchanged but members retain
their own tariff rates
customs unions - where a
common external tariff is implemented in addition to the
exchange of reciprocal preferences
assymetrical
agreements, where preferences are not strictly reciprocal - for example, one
party may be allowed longer than another to implement certain
preferences
The
North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) is an example of
a free trade area, the European Communities (EC) is an example
of a customs union and many EC Association Agreements (such
as those with North African countries) are examples of assymetrical
agreements.
Regional
Trade Agreements are expanding in both number and scope.
Recent World Trade Organisation (WTO) Secretariat research
identifies some 248 RTAs as either being in force or under
negotiation, and some RTAs (with more under negotiation)
now extend outside regions - for example, the EC/Mexico
and EC/South Africa Agreements and the US/Israel Agreement.
Other RTAs under negotiation - such as the EC/Mercosur Agreement
- promise region-to-region free trade areas. Regional Trade
Agreements can be seen as inherently discriminatory, in
that they contravene GATT Article I and GATS Article II
(most favoured nation treatment) by allowing WTO Members
which are parties to an RTA to offer trade preferences that
are not available to all WTO Members.
However,
under WTO rules, WTO Members are allowed to enter into Regional
Trade Agreements provided those Agreements meet certain
criteria about their coverage of trade, implementation periods
and so on. These criteria are set out in Article XXIV of
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and in
Article V of the General Agreement on Trade in Services
(GATS).
At
Doha it was agreed that there should be negotiations to
clarify and improve disciplines and procedures under the
existing WTO provision applying to regional trade agreements.
This work is being carried out within the WTO Negotiating
Group on Rules. In addition a WTO Committee – the Committee
on Regional Trade Agreements (CRTA) – examines members agreements
to ensure they comply with WTO rules.
Contact:
Ian Broadhurst
Tel: 020 7215 5772
Fax: 020 7215 2235
Email: ian.broadhurst@dti.gsi.gov.uk
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