On Wednesday 18 April, European Commission Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness Jyrki Katainen and European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström announced that the European Commission has sent the texts of the EU-Japan and EU-Singapore free trade agreements to the Council of the EU and the European Parliament for signature and ratification. The hope is that the agreements can enter into force before the end of the Juncker Commission's mandate in autumn 2019.
To accelerate the ratification process and avoid the setbacks encountered with the free trade agreement with Canada (CETA), the Commission has decided to split the text of the agreement with Singapore into two parts – one on the purely trade arrangements which, having exclusive EU competence, will only require the consent of the European Parliament; and the other on the investment arrangements which, having competence shared between the EU and its member states, will require the consent of the European Parliament and the approval of national parliaments.
The agreement with Singapore is the first free trade agreement negotiated and concluded by the EU since the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. It has been subject to an opinion of the EU Court of Justice on the allocation of competences between the EU and its member states for its conclusion and ratification (see EUROPE 11789).
The EU-Japan economic partnership agreement was concluded in December 2017 (see EUROPE 11922) without agreement on its arrangements on investment – for which talks are still ongoing. The EU wants an investment dispute arbitration mechanism of the ICS type, which is promoted in CETA, but Japan would prefer an arbitration mechanism of the ISDS type.
According to EUROPE's sources, the processes for approval by the Council of the two agreements with Singapore and Japan will be consecutive due to a lack of lawyer-linguists.
The Council will firstly focus on the EU-Japan economic partnership agreement. The date for an EU-Japan summit for signature of the agreement has still not been decided but "the idea is to have it around 10-11 July, if work on the text of the agreement progresses well at the Council", a Community source stated.
At the European Parliament, rapporteur Pedro Silva Pereira (S&D, Portugal) said on 22 March that he hoped for the signature of the text by the Council "before the summer", for an examination of the text by MEPs in the autumn ahead of a vote of approval in December.
"We hope for signature of this agreement before the summer", Malmström repeated on Wednesday.
The EU and Japan want to ensure the entry into force of their agreement in early 2019, ideally before the UK leaves the EU in March 2019 (see EUROPE 11972). The UK would remain party to the agreement even during the transition period before it leaves the EU, according to several sources.
Once the signature of the EU-Japan agreement is assured, the Council will focus on the EU-Singapore free trade agreement that was concluded in December 2012 (see EUROPE 10753). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)