Competition policy
Comparing EU free trade agreements: competition policy and state aid
Competition and state policy in EU free trade agreements
Authors:
S. Szepesi
Publisher:
European Centre for Development Policy Management , 2004
The aim of this short paper is to provide a an overview of competition policy and state aid provisions, of the various trade agreements (FTAs) recently concluded by the European Union with developing countries.
All recent bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) concluded by the European Union (EU) have included provisions on competition issues, albeit to very different degrees of detail. The precise content of the competition provisions in the agreements seems closely related to the degree to which the EU's trading partners had domestic competition legislation in place when the FTAs were signed.
The paper observes that:
- the agreements with Chile and Mexico contain clear provisions that recognise the parties' respective competition authorities
- South Africa was still in the process of implementing its competition legislation when it signed an FTA with the EU, and this is reflected in its chapter on competition
- some of the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreements (the so-called MED agreements) essentially commit partners to introduce competition legislation similar to that of the EU.
