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India was among the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the European Economic Community in 1962. Following the EU-India 1994 Cooperation Agreement, the parties built a multi-tiered institutional architecture of cooperation, and eventually upgraded their relationship to a 'Strategic Partnership' in 2004. During the same period, trade between the two partners grew significantly, reaching €115.4 billion in 2022. As a result, the parties began negotiations on a broad-based bilateral ...

On 30 June 2022, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the conclusion of negotiations on a comprehensive EU-New Zealand free trade agreement (FTA). The agreement was signed on 9 July 2023. Although the 2014-2019 Commission had initially aimed to finalise negotiations before the end of its mandate, both sides raised several sensitive issues during negotiations, not least because New Zealand is a major and competitive producer and exporter ...

This briefing provides a pre-legislative synthesis of the positions of national, regional and local governmental organisations on the European Commission's listing act proposals. The proposals are designed to support companies' access to public capital markets. This briefing forms part of an EPRS series offering a summary of the pre-legislative state of play and advance consultation on a range of key Commission priorities during its five-year term in office. It seeks to present the current state ...

On 21 September 2021, the Commission published its proposal for a new EU scheme of generalised preferences (GSP). Two of the current scheme's three components are due to expire at the end of 2023, which would deprive developing countries of a vital opportunity to trade under preferential terms with the EU. Therefore, renewing the scheme appears to be both a necessity and an opportunity to strengthen its conditionality in the light of lessons learned and the increased urgency for dealing with the ...

The current partnership between sub-Saharan African, Caribbean and Pacific states (ACP) and the EU (the Cotonou Partnership Agreement) has a provision making it possible for the EU to negotiate different economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with regional ACP sub-groups. This provision was needed for the partnership to be aligned with the World Trade Organization's rules. Negotiations for an EPA with the partner states of the East African Community (EAC) – at the time: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania ...

EPRS invites leading experts and commentators to share their thinking and insights on important topics of relevance to debate in the European institutions. In this paper, Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, looks at the current state of the Chinese economy, and at the various factors likely to influence its evolution in the coming years. He argues that Chinese growth will slow to below the levels ...

This study looks at the European Commission’s proposal for a new GSP Regulation from human rights and sustainable development perspectives. It focuses on proposed changes to the conditionality provisions with their linked monitoring and dialogue processes that aim to promote human rights, sustainable development and good governance in the beneficiary countries. The Commission’s proposal is not revolutionary as it foresees retention of the three existing arrangements (Standard GSP, GSP+ and EBA). ...

This briefing discusses the main challenges and concerns for SMEs doing business in third countries. First, we show the current situation of European SMEs with respect to internationalisation and highlight the corresponding benefits. Second, based on previous literature on the topic, we distinguish between SMEs without international operations and SMEs that are already internationalised and discuss how different barriers can affect them.

In May 2018, the Council authorised the Commission to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA) with Australia. Negotiations were officially launched in June 2018. Between July 2018 and September 2020, eight negotiation rounds took place. The first chapter of the prospective EU-Australia FTA, concluded at the technical level, is on small and medium-sized enterprises. The ninth negotiation round started on 30 November 2020.

Lack of reciprocity in access to the Chinese market and the absence of a level playing field for EU investors in China have posed major challenges for EU-China investment relations in recent years, with the negotiation of a comprehensive agreement on investment (CAI) being considered by the EU a key instrument to remedy this state of play. The CAI negotiations are aimed at establishing a uniform legal framework for EU-China investment ties by replacing the 25 outdated bilateral investment treaties ...