Bilateral Agreements Improve Trade and Economic Relations Between the European Union and Japan

Abstract

On 17 July 2018, the Economic Partnership Agreement and the Strategic Partnership Agreement were signed by representatives of the EU and Japan. Both agreements are expected to enter into force in 2019. The EPA provides the legal basis for allowing companies from Japan to access the EU’s internal market on the most favourable terms and vice versa. At the same time, it establishes a legal framework that ensures important economic policy objectives such as legal certainty, transparency, consumer protection, promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises, competition and economic, social and environmental sustainability. The EPA is therefore much more than a free trade agreement, as it provides for a much wider integration of markets beyond the reduction and elimination of tariffs and the removal of trade barriers. Based on the same negotiation context and legally linked with the EPA, the SPA covers a number of areas, including political dialogue, energy, transport, human rights, education, science and technology, justice, asylum and migration.

To date, the EU and Japan have already concluded several other bilateral agreements in a number of areas, including the mutual recognition of the results of conformity assessments for various products and manufacturing processes (2002), anti-competitive activities (2003), the peaceful uses of nuclear energy (Euratom 1998, 2006, 2007), mutual administrative assistance in customs matters (2008), mutual assistance in criminal matters (2010) and cooperation in science and technology (2011).

This paper provides an overview, with comments, of the EU’s existing bilateral international agreements with Japan, and reveals their importance for the Union's trade and economic relations with Japan.