17/08/2016
The 1973 agreement between the EEC and Norway, comprising 113 pages including schedules, is a free trade agreement. So is the 2010 EU-Republic of Korea agreement, but that runs to 1,432 pages. Furthermore, this agreement does not stand on its own. It runs in parallel with a framework agreement that runs to a further 64 pages.
On the other hand the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU, which has yet to come into force, takes 1,598 pages. But the EU-Chile Agreement, which came into force in 2005, is only 112 pages. The 1995 EU-Turkey Agreement, on forming a customs union â the so-called Ankara Agreement - is a mere 55 pages.
Even when agreements are roughly the same length, there are substantial differences in content, as to sectors which are covered and the various exclusions, rendering each a unique property.
Complicating the matter even further, there are a myriad of agreements which are dedicated to, and have the effect of, freeing up trade, which are not termed free trade agreements. Furthermore, to facilitate trade, some nations rely not on a single, comprehensive agreement, but a multiplicity of agreements, some of which do not even have the status of treaties. Often these are interwoven with multilateral treaties, the effects gained reflecting the interaction between a group of agreements (not all of them treaties), rather than on any single instrument.
Yet, in the post-referendum discourse, it is commonly asserted that the UK's trading relations with the EU can be settled by reference to a "free trade agreement", without advocates in any way specifying what they mean by the terms. This is unhelpful. They are using a portmanteau expression, its meaning generic rather than descriptive. It does not define sufficiently, if at all, the relationship we need with the EU.
If the debate on these matters is to progress, we need a great deal more precision and clarity as to the terms used.
In
this Monograph, we look at the different arrangements that are entered into by disparate nations, how they apply and how, separately and in concert, they can achieve an effect. And, with a more precise vocabulary, we look anew at the arrangements which might be of value to the UK in resolving the Article 50 Brexit negotiations.
