Brussels, 05/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - As it has already done with Ukraine, the EU is to open negotiations on free trade areas with Georgia and Moldova as part of the Eastern Partnership.
The association agreements which have been under discussion with Georgia and Moldova since July 2010 and January 2010 respectively are to have a trade chapter. On 2 December, the Council gave the go-ahead for talks on agreements governing free trade areas between the EU and the two former Soviet republics with the aim of establishing “closer economic ties”, said Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht. The negotiations will touch on a broad range of trade issues, including investment, to bring closer integration. The agreements will extend the scope of current cooperation between the EU and the two countries set out partnership and cooperation agreements which have been in force since July 1998 in the case of Moldova and since July 1999 in the case of Georgia. The first round of talks will take place at the start of next year.
In a press release, Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle says that both Georgia and Moldova “have achieved sufficient progress with the necessary reforms and have fulfilled a set of conditions to be able to proceed further in the gradual economic integration with the EU internal market”. Substantial reforms were required notably in the fields of technical regulations, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, intellectual property rights protection and competition rules. Georgia and Moldova must now continue their efforts to bring the greater stability, transparency and predictability to their legislative regimes that are essential to improve foreign direct investment inflows.
The EU is the major trading partner of both Georgia and Moldova. Bilateral trade in goods amounted to €1.7 billion with Georgia and €2.1 billion with Moldova in 2010. Both countries already receive preferential access to the EU market, Georgia through the Generalised System of Preferences Plus (GSP+) and Moldova through the Autonomous Trade Preference (ATP) mechanisms. (EH/transl.rt)