Modernisation of the trade pillar of the EU-Chile Association Agreement [International Agreements in Progress]

Written by Gisela Grieger (2nd edition, updated on 20.01.2023).

On 9 December 2022, 20 years after the signature of EU-Chile Association Agreement in 2002, the EU and Chile reached an agreement in principle on a new EU-Chile Advanced Framework Agreement, which comprises modernised trade and political and cooperation pillars. Negotiations were launched to modernise the 2002 Association Agreement, including its trade pillar in November 2017, based on a Council negotiating mandate, which was the first-ever to have been published to enhance transparency and inclusiveness prior to the start of negotiations.

Although the trade pillar had operated smoothly and led to a significant expansion of bilateral trade in goods and services and investment, Chile and the EU agreed to broaden and deepen it to unlock untapped potential, break new ground and keep pace with new trade and investment patterns in a global competitive environment that has fundamentally changed with the growing global footprint of countries like China.

The agreed text of the EU-Chile Advanced Framework Agreement will first undergo legal revision and be translated into the EU’s official languages before it can be formally signed and ratified. Since the agreement comprises provisions falling under the EU’s exclusive competence and shared competence with EU Member States, an EU-Chile interim free trade agreement will be extracted from the comprehensive agreement and undergo an EU-only ratification process, while the EU-Chile Advanced Framework Agreement as a whole will also have to be ratified by all EU Member States in accordance with their constitutional requirements. The former will expire, once the latter has entered into force.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Modernisation of the trade pillar of the EU-Chile Association Agreement‘ on the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.