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EU: Free Trade Agreements

Volume 715: debated on Wednesday 9 December 2009

Question

Asked by

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many countries the European Union has free trade agreements with; and how many such agreements the European Union is negotiating. [HL327]

The European Union (EU) has free trade agreements (FTA) with South Africa, Chile and Mexico. As part of the European economic area the EU has FTAs with Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Iceland.

Currently, the EU is negotiating FTAs with: India; Ukraine; Libya; Central America (comprising Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama); Andean Nations (comprising Colombia and Peru); the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Burma and Cambodia); the Euro-Mediterranean countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey); Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay); Iran; Iraq and the Gulf Co-operation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)).

The EU-Korea FTA was initialled in October 2009 and is scheduled to be signed in 2010.

Other agreements that include elements of free trade agreements include economic partnership, association agreements, stabilisation and association agreements and partnership and co-operation agreements.

The European Commission website provides information on all of the European Union's bilateral trade relations: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating- opportunities/bilateral-relations/index_en.htm