Consulta pública sobre la posible modernización del capítulo comercial del Acuerdo UE-Chile
Objeto de la consulta
Esta consulta publica tiene como objetivo la modernización de la parte comercial del Tratado entre la UE y Chile. Las opiniones que se recojan formarán parte del informe de Impact Assesment que los servicios de la Comision Europea están preparando.
Context of the consultation
In 2002, Chile was the first South American country to conclude an Association Agreement with the EU (hereinafter ‘the Agreement’). The Agreement, which includes political, cooperation and trade provisions, entered into force (the trade part) in February 2003. Since then, there have, however, been significant trade policy developments in both regions and both parties, which have concluded a number of Agreements with other trading partners.
Chile has, for example, joined the Pacific Alliance and is part of the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. The EU has concluded ‘new generation’ agreements with other countries in the Americas (Trade Agreement with Colombia and Peru, Association Agreement with Central America), it has concluded negotiations with Canada and it has been negotiating with the US (TTIP) since 2013.
These agreements or on-going negotiations go well beyond the existing content of the trade pillar of the EU-Chile Association Agreement and as a result, the preferential relationship between Chile and the EU now risks falling behind when compared to the relationships of each of those parties with their other trading partners.
During the EU CELAC Summit in January 2013, EU and Chilean leaders agreed to “explore the options for a modernisation of the Agreement”. Since then, the EU and Chile have carried out exploratory discussions to assess whether there is a sufficiently large area of issues of common interest to allow the modernisation process to move forward.