Time ripe for RP-Europe trade deal
Philippine Daily Inquirer | 10/20/2010
Time ripe for RP-Europe trade deal
By Abigail L. Ho
MANILA, Philippines—With member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations becoming more aggressive in forging free-trade agreements outside of existing regional trade pacts, the time may now be right for the Philippines to tread the same path.
European Union Ambassador Alistair MacDonald noted the advanced discussions that the EU was now having with Singapore, as well as its recently launched FTA talks with Malaysia.
Vietnam had likewise expressed interest in starting FTA negotiations with the EU, following the signing of the EU-Korea FTA earlier this month.
If the Philippines does not want to be left behind, he said the country would do well to step up its efforts in launching FTA talks with the EU.
“I believe that the time is ripe for the Philippines and the EU to look seriously at a possible bilateral FTA, not as an alternative to an EU-Asean FTA, but as an important building block towards that goal, and as a means of ensuring that the Philippines is able to take advantage of the opportunities, which some of your neighbors are already very keen to capture,” he said in a recent speech.
The Philippines had an advantage over some of its neighbors, he said, as an EU-Philippines partnership and cooperation agreement (PCA), a precursor to a full-blown FTA, was already in place.
The PCA lays down the framework of cooperation between EU and the Philippines in the areas of politics, trade and investments, justice and security, migration and other economic and development issues, sans the trade concessions afforded by an FTA.
On the part of the EU, he said the trading bloc was “willing to engage bilaterally with those Asean countries who are willing and able to negotiate an ambitious FTA ..., which covers not only the liberalization of trade in goods and services, but also addresses such issues as (intellectual property rights) protection, trade facilitation, government procurement, investment and competition policy.”
