The trade agreement preserves EU rules in the chemical sector and introduces cooperation on regulatory transparency in areas such as the EU-South Korea trade agreement, which reduces differences in requirements for European and South Korean products by adopting the same international standards. Relevant international standardisation bodies for this sector include the EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement, which has been provisionally applied since July 2011 before being formally ratified in December 2015. The Agreement contains provisions on trade remedies referring to relevant WTO rules and provides for additional disciplines for such measures, including notifications and extensive consultations. The EU and South Korea are now working together on technical regulations, establishing standards and conformity assessments to facilitate international trade. This ensures that you don`t waste money and/or time on duplicate or multiple procedures. The free trade agreement between the EU and South Korea also marked South Korea`s entry into the “free trade agreement”. Before the agreement with the EU, South Korea`s only free trade agreement was the one it signed with Chile in 2003. In other words, South Korea was lagging behind the global trend of free trade agreements and trying to catch up. By signing a free trade agreement with the EU, South Korea has been able to strengthen its influence over middle power in the growing area of bilateral trade liberalization. South Korea now has a total of 15 free trade agreements in place (with key economic players such as India and ASEAN) and it has ongoing negotiations with others, including Russia and the Mercosur trading bloc.
Ultimately, the liberalization of the free trade agreement in South Korea helped strengthen its export-oriented development strategy for industrialization. The trade agreement contains detailed enforcement measures in the event of infringement of intellectual property rights, such as.B. For the second decade of the EU-ROK Free Trade Agreement to be as successful as the first in the creation and integration of bilateral trade, both sides should focus on addressing outstanding disputes related to labour and hygiene standards. These problems could be solved by strengthening the enforcement mechanisms of the T&D chapter and clarifying its legal implications. Any renegotiation or modernisation of the FTA should also include provisions on new trade-related areas such as e-commerce, green technologies and cross-border data flows, which occupy an important place in the current global economic landscape. Including such changes in an improved free trade agreement would undoubtedly help to consolidate the economic pillar of the valuable EU-South Korea partnership. Negotiations on the EU-ROK Free Trade Agreement also covered many areas previously spared by traditional free trade agreements. It is considered a “new generation” free trade agreement because it includes enhanced intellectual property protection and a chapter on trade and sustainable development (T&SD) with several legally binding commitments on environmental and labour-related governance.
This chapter has become an important source of dispute between the EU and South Korea, as explained below. By integrating these standards into a “deep” free trade agreement with South Korea, the EU has been able to strengthen its credibility as a regulatory superpower. The new era of next-generation free trade agreements, launched with the EU-Republic of Korea Free Trade Agreement, has become another area in which the EU exerts its global influence. This “Brussels effect,” as Colombian law professor Anu Bradford calls it, allows the EU to effectively outsource its laws and high standards to jurisdictions around the world. The recent decision of the EU-ROK Free Trade Agreement Expert Group on South Korean Labour Law rightly demonstrates the EU`s ability to raise standards around the world and shape the global business environment. The free trade agreement covers all major areas of trade relations, including trade in goods, trade in services, government procurement, competition and intellectual property. A joint committee will be set up to monitor the agreement and a chapter will provide for dispute settlement procedures. In addition, the EFTA States and Korea have concluded bilateral agreements on basic agricultural products. An investment agreement has been concluded between Korea, of the one part, and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, of the other part. The agreement removes tariffs on 98% of import duties and trade barriers for industrial products, agricultural products and services over a five-year period. [13] It contains a guarantee that South Korea`s car emissions regulation will not be detrimental to European car manufacturers and includes a clause to protect European car manufacturers. [14] [15] [16] This economic logic explains why South Korea negotiated free trade agreements with the US and the EU at the same time and implemented a free trade agreement with China shortly after in 2015.
In fact, South Korea is now one of the few countries to have free trade agreements with the EU, the US and China, establishing itself as an important hub on the world trade scene. South Korea`s recent decision to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a free trade agreement signed by 15 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, has further strengthened its strategic trade position. As a result, many small and medium-sized EU exporters have decided to start their first Asian trade cooperation in South Korea, hoping to access other emerging markets in the region behind the door. Detailed provisions relating to motor vehicles and parts covered by the Agreement are set out in Annex 2-C Motor vehicles and parts and its Annexes. The EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement promotes rigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights by customs authorities and complements the minimum standards of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Wines and spirits fall under Annex 10-B of the agreement and include, for example: they can benefit from a more open South Korean services market under the trade agreement. The FREE TRADE AGREEMENT between the EU and the Republic of Korea contained provisions in the above-mentioned areas that were generally not affected by traditional free trade agreements. These include, for example, the T&SD chapter with provisions on the implementation of ILO conventions, monitoring impacts on sustainability and setting up institutional mechanisms to ensure the implementation of the chapter. These provisions include, for example, the establishment of a group of independent experts on trade, labour and the environment to examine complaints and make recommendations, as demonstrated by the recent judgment of the ILO-related body.
These bodies also provide an opportunity to seek solutions to market access problems and to engage in closer cooperation on regulatory issues. An annual trade committee at ministerial level has an oversight function and aims to ensure the proper functioning of the agreement. EU-South Korea trade agreement protects European geographical indications Overall, the last decade of the EU-South Korea free trade agreement has proven beneficial for both partners. From a trade policy perspective, there have been clear increases for the EU and South Korea, as evidenced by the increase in the volume of trade and the degree of integration. However, trade disputes have arisen between the two partners, particularly in the areas of labour standards and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures. The first decade of bilateral trade liberalization has also brought clear benefits to both sides that have gone beyond the narrow issue of creating and deepening bilateral trade. For South Korea, the free trade agreement with the EU has helped achieve its status as a pivotal FTA country while signaling its commitment to bilateral trade liberalization. For the EU, the free trade agreement with South Korea set in motion its commitment to free trade agreements in Asia and its leadership in a new model of free trade agreements for the 21st century. This is the third trade agreement that South Korea and the European Union have signed between them.
The first, the Agreement on Customs Cooperation and Mutual Administrative Assistance, was signed on 13 May 1997. [5] This agreement allows the sharing of competition policy between the two parties. [6] The second agreement, the Framework Agreement on Trade and Cooperation, entered into force on 1 April 2001. The framework aims to strengthen cooperation in various sectors, including transport, energy, science and technology, industry, environment and culture. [6] [7] The Agreement establishes a high standard for the protection of intellectual property rights (Article 7(1) to (7)(3) and Annex XIII) covering areas such as patents, trademarks and copyright and going beyond what is provided for in the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and other international agreements and treaties in certain areas. After eight rounds of negotiations, the FREE TRADE AGREEMENT between the EU and the Republic of Korea was finally signed in 2010 and provisionally applied from July 2011. It officially entered into force in 2015 following its parliamentary ratification by EU Member States and South Korea. The relatively rapid implementation process led to the entry into force of the EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement almost a year before the US-South Korea Free Trade Agreement, even though the South Korean agreement had been signed many years earlier in 2007. (Negotiations on a free trade agreement with the U.S. were stalled due to market access issues for U.S. beef, as well as Korean fuel and emissions standards for auto imports.) The EFTA States signed a free trade agreement with the Republic of Korea on 15 December 2005 in Hong Kong, China. The Agreement entered into force on 1 September 2006 for Korea, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland and on 1 October 2006 for Iceland.
The free trade agreement also addresses non-tariff barriers to trade, particularly in the automotive, pharmaceutical, medical device and electronics sectors. For South Korea, the signing of a free trade agreement with the EU was an important step in establishing itself as an important FHA pivotal country in East Asia. In mainstream economic thinking, FTA pivot countries (i.e., countries that sign free trade agreements with several key markets) are expected to win economically for two main reasons. First, as a “hub” in a star deal, it has preferential access to any “hub-and-spoke market.” .