EUの新しいFTA戦略と効果監視メカニズムの導入

抄録

　This paper summarizes the evolution and background of the European Union’s （EU） Free Trade Agreement （FTA） strategy, which focuses on economic objectives, since October 2016 when the EU published its “Global Europe” strategy. It also considers the substantive impact of the Lisbon Treaty on the EU’s trade agreements, the current status of the outcomes of the EU’s FTA strategy by setting targets and introducing an effective monitoring mechanism, and the role of the European Commission, particularly in trade. As a result, the analysis clarifies the following points.

　First, when the Lisbon Treaty entered force in December 2009, the EU’s exclusive competence extended to the trade of services, trade aspects of intellectual property rights, and foreign direct investment. However, the mechanism to pursue economic effects is currently limited to traditional trade-related tariff-saving effects. The topic of the negotiations of the EU-wide investment protection agreements is still being explored. On the other hand, having the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement （EPA） enter into force as a non-mixed agreement is a new step from the perspective of EU integration.

　Second, to promote economic gains through the FTA strategy, the EU established trade-related KPIs and created a mechanism for monitoring progress through annual activity reports and FTA implementation reports. However, cooperation from partner countries is indispensable, such as by collecting data on preferential tariff utilization rates by FTAs. This data exchange provision was introduced with the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement （CETA） with Canada, and the EU is forming a mechanism by which future agreements will reflect the improvements discovered to date. In addition, the accumulation of expertise in the European Commission contributed greatly to the creation of this mechanism.

　Third, this mechanism has progressed, and the EU-Korea FTA is regarded as the “first sample” of “new generation FTA,” and certain effects, such as tariff reduction, have been confirmed five years after the provisional application started. However, FTAs for which the negotiations began after the Global Europe Strategy did not achieve satisfactory outcomes in line with their initial goals, except the EU-Korea FTA. It is not yet possible to confirm the effects of the CETA and the EU-Japan EPA.

　Based on the discussion above, I believe that I was able to show that the EU adopted a target-management type evaluation method in its recent FTA strategy and clarified its policy of pursuing more economic effects using this method.