On Friday 19 October, the European Union and Singapore signed two trade agreements in Brussels – a free trade agreement and an investment protection agreement – as well as a partnership and cooperation framework agreement.
The signature of these trade agreements marks a key stage of a long and winding negotiation road. Concluded in 2012, the free trade agreement with Singapore had its signature delayed following proceedings launched in early 2014 by the European Commission at the EU Court of Justice regarding the division of competences between the EU and its member states for the conclusion and ratification of the agreement (see EUROPE 11789). The court ruled that the agreement as it stood could not be concluded by the EU alone. This opinion had required the European negotiators to agree with their counterparts from Singapore on splitting the agreement into two parts: a free trade agreement, on the one hand, relating only to the exclusive competence of the EU, and an investment agreement, on the other hand, needing the approval not only of the EU but also of all the member states.
The EU and Singapore now hope to ratify their free trade agreement as quickly as possible, in other words before the end of the mandate of the current European Commission.
However, nothing is yet played out. On the European Parliament side, some MEPs on the left of the political spectrum could oppose these agreements. "With the elections next year in the European Parliament, we are facing a precarious situation whereby some MEPs on the left of the political spectrum could be demonstrating their leverage before the elections ", Hosuk Lee-Makiyama from think-tank ECIPE told EUROPE. "They could weight it (Ed: the agreement with Singapore) up against Japan, which is too big to fail", he added (see other article).
As to the investment protection agreement, it will have not only to be ratified by the European Parliament but also by all the parliaments of the EU member states, a procedure that could take at least two years. The parliaments will doubtless choose to wait for the Court of Justice to give its opinion once again, this time on the legality of the investment dispute arbitration system, an opinion that might not come before 2020 (see EUROPE 12025). (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)