Dr Rafael Leal-Arcas has been invited to give a talk on “Lessons learned from concluded and ongoing FTA negotiations between the EU and East Asian countries.” He will be one of the panelists at the annual high-level conference titled Trading Freely with Asia: Challenges and opportunities for EU FTAs with partners in East Asia, Institut Francais des Relations Internationales, Paris, France on 13 November 2012.
In 2006, the European Commission launched an ambitious plan to conclude a new generation of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Asian markets as part of its Global Europe strategy. Today the use of such FTAs is all the more important since negotiations at the WTO are stalled, but also more contested as the state of the global economy remains volatile and uncertain. The objective of this one-day meeting is to take stock of the implementation of the Commission’s FTA strategy and the positions of a sampling of Asian partners, highlighting both the opportunities and challenges from the perspective of government, business and independent observers.