Free Trade Agreements in International Trade of Goods

The EU, together with the USA and China, represents 40% of global trade and 45% of GDP, playing a leading role in the international trade scene. It is committed to promoting “multilateral liberalization” (see COM (2006) 567 p. 4.2.) of such trade, aimed at increasing trade openness as a factor for stimulating productivity, growth, and job creation.

Alongside the current crisis of the multilateral trading system (see the Doha Round) within the framework of WTO (World Trade Organization) relations, for which the EU Council has also adopted the MPIA (Multilateral Provisional Agreement on Appellate Arbitration for the Settlement of Trade Disputes between WTO Members), to which Japan adhered on March 10th, the EU has concluded numerous preferential trade agreements in recent years, attributable to the legal framework of the WTO, which is presented as the meeting point of multilateral commercial relations at the international level, whose member states represent almost all global trade.

The purpose of the WTO, as “the most effective way of expanding and managing trade in a rules-based system, and a cornerstone of the multilateral system” (see COM (2006) 567 p. 1), is to promote a