EU – the huge market with 27 members is one of the most important trade partners of Vietnam. In recent years, Vietnam – EU trade relations have developed significantly. In 1995, the two sides signed a Framework Cooperation Agreement. Vietnam and EU relation are further strengthened through signing off Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA). Vietnam and EU intend to launch a free trade negotiation with large and deep market access commitments.
This analysis chose four Free Trade Agreements that for their modernity and their similarities with the kind of FTA will be proposed by the EU, will be more likely a useful benchmark on which evaluate the EU’s demand vis-à-vis Vietnam. The Agreements are: EU – Chile; EU – Korea; EU – CARIFORUM; EU – Colombia and Peru
Free trade agreements (FTAs) are becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex trade policy instruments. The European Union begun to systematically use FTAs in the nineties in order to extend its sphere of economic influence to neighbouring countries. With the time FTAs evolved to address also non-trade concerns. Indeed, compared with the initial wave of FTAs of the early nineties, which were used to address market access and trade in goods issues, the new generation of FTAs can be described as mature economic and foreign policy instruments that go well beyond reduction of trade barriers.
