On Wednesday 1 March, the chief negotiators of the EU-Japan economic partnership agreement hinted that the EU and Japan are making every effort to ensure the entry into force of this agreement (which was concluded in December 2017) in early 2019 –ideally before the UK leaves the EU in March 2019.
"It’s a very high priority that it enter force before the end of March 2019”, Japan’s ambassador for international economic affairs, Yoichi Suzuki, said at a seminar in Brussels, adding that the agreement would likely be presented to the Japanese parliament later in 2018, allowing ratification by the end of the year.
A free trade agreement concluded by the EU, which would enter into force before Brexit, could be applied to the UK during a two-year transition period once the country leaves the EU (planned for March 2019).
Japan is closely monitoring the Brexit negotiations and future relations between the EU and UK, where several of its car manufacturers are established to serve the European market without barriers or friction between the UK and the European continent.
If the EU-Japan economic partnership agreement is in force during the transition phase of Brexit, it would give Japan more time to conclude a separate free trade agreement with the UK, Suzuki stated.
European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said on Tuesday 27 February that she hoped for the signature of the EU-Japan economic partnership agreement by the summer, with ratification after the summer, so that the agreement can enter into force in early 2019.
"We are looking at the possibility of leaders signing the agreement by the summer. Before that, it will have to be adopted by the Council and then forwarded to the European Parliament for approval after the summer", Malmström said at the end of the EU trade ministers meeting in Sofia on Tuesday.
The chief EU negotiator, Mauro Petriccione, confirmed on Wednesday that the European Commission was doing its utmost to obtain the signature of the agreement by this summer.
"We have been cutting all administrative blockages. There’s a reasonable expectation that it could enter force early next year”, he said.
After its legal scrubbing, the text of the agreement needs to be translated into all the languages of the EU, before being presented to the EU Council and European Parliament.
Petriccione said on Wednesday that the translators had been given just two months to do this, compared with a normal seven to eight months.
The European and Japanese negotiators also confirmed the intention of both parties to separate the investment dispute settlement mechanism from the trade agreement. "We have time constraints", Suzuki stated.
Discussions between the Commission and Japanese administration continue on this chapter, on which the EU and Japan differ in opinion on which model to adopt.
The EU is in favour of its new model of the investment court system (ICS), promoted in its agreements with Canada and Vietnam as well as at multilateral level, but Japan is in favour of the old ISDS-type mechanism (see EUROPE 11946). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)