The European Union negotiates trade agreements on behalf of all of its member states, as the member states have granted the EU has an "exclusive competence" to conclude trade agreements. Even so, member states' governments control every step of the process (via the Council of the European Union, whose members are national ministers from each national government):
- Before negotiations start, member states' governments (via the Council of Ministers) approve the negotiating mandate;
- During negotiations, member states' governments are regularly briefed on the progress of negotiations and can update the negotiations mandate or suspend negotiations;
- Upon conclusion of negotiations, member states' governments decide whether the agreement should be signed;
- After approval from the European Parliament and (in case the agreement covers areas other than trade such as investment protection) upon ratification in each member state parliament, member states' governments decide whether the agreement should be concluded and enter into effect.
Trade agreements in force
Trade agreements provisionally applied
Agreement signed (awaiting application)
Agreements being finalised (negotiations concluded, but not signed)
Negotiating new or modernised agreements
Negotiations on hold
Obsolete agreements
Soviet Union and its successors
The European Economic Community established relations with the Soviet Union through the conclusion of the EEC-Euratom-Soviet Union Agreement on trade and commercial and economic cooperation in 1989. After 1991, all 12 successor states to the Soviet Union applied the agreement concluded in 1989 in bilateral relations as their trade agreement with the European Communities and the European Union. As of 2025, the Agreement is in force between the European Union and the Republic of Belarus and between the European Union and Turkmenistan. Previously, the Agreement applied to relations with other successor states of the Soviet Union, but has been replaced by separate bilateral agreements with each post-Soviet country.
Competence
The European Court of Justice has held that investor-state arbitration provisions (including a dedicated tribunal planned by some free trade agreements) falls under competency shared between European Union and its member states and that for this reason, the ratification of such mixed agreements should be approved by the EU as well as by each of the union's member states. This court decision has resulted in a new architecture of external trade negotiations which will have two components:
- a free trade agreement - related exclusively to trade matters - which can be adopted at the EU level;
- an investment agreement - containing investment, arbitration and other non-trade provisions - which needs to be ratified by the member states as well.
Impact to consumers
One study found that the trade agreements that the EU implemented over the period 1993-2013 have, on average, increased the quality of imported goods by 7% and therefore "lowered quality-adjusted prices by close to 7%," without having much of an impact on the non-adjusted price.
No trade agreements
- The United States of America and the European Union efforts have not yielded a comprehensive, bilateral free trade agreement. "They also have worked to address these issues multilaterally in the WTO. The United States engages with the European Commission on trade policy matters. Over the years, many Members of Congress have voiced support for ... negotiations to eliminate and reduce remaining tariff and nontariff barriers. The current outlook for bilateral trade agreement negotiations is unclear.", according to congress.gov as of 2022.
According to the European Commission's website, as of 2025:
- there is no bilateral trade agreement between the EU and Iran.
- the EU has no trade arrangements with Libya.
- "There are no preferential trade arrangements between Venezuela and the EU. The EU-Venezuela trade relationship is based on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and tariffs."
- Myanmar is a member of WTO since 1995 and, as a least developed country, benefits from the EU's Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme, which grants unilateral duty-free, quota-free access for all exports except arms and ammunition to the EU.
- "Accession to the EU's Pacific EPA is open to other Pacific ACP states. On 27 January 2025, the EU Council of Ministers adopted a proposal for the accession of Niue, Tonga and Tuvalu to the EPA. Accession processes are also underway with the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Timor Leste and Vanuatu."
See also
Notes
References
External links