Trade, Association, Aid - Has the Association Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Chile fulfilled its purposes?

Abstract

Abstract

An Association Agreement between EC and Chile came into force in February 2003. The agreement includes three elements; Political dialogue, Cooperation and Trade. The AA is sad to be a “fourth generation +” agreement, the most ambitious FTA that EU has signed with a non European Party and the most ambitious agreement ever signed by Chile that has been called the “world champion in Free Trade”. The thesis starts with an overview of the material extent of the Association Agreement and thereafter it passes on to the question of the purposes of the Agreement. The purpose of this thesis is to answer the question about whether this Association Agreement has fulfilled its purposes or not. A big part of the agreement is of course the free trade provisions but as the customs between the Parties were already low before the Agreement came into force the main reason for signing the agreement might not have been increasing the free trade between the Parties. For this reason it must be asked, what are the purposes of the Association Agreement between EC and Chile? The purposes of the agreement have been found to be three main purposes; Trade and Trade related matters (Trade, Investment, Standards), Association (WTO, Mercosur, “Change of image) and Aid (Democracy and Human rights, Fight against Poverty, Gender, Education, Labour and Environment). The main focus of the thesis will be on the purposes of the European Union. The official purposes should be the same for EU and for Chile but there are other purposes that can be individual for each Party. In some aspects the purposes of Chile is touch up on but in general the thesis takes a European perspective and focuses on why EC choose to sign an association agreement with such a small country and the outcome of the agreement from the point of view of EC. In a separate chapter in the end of the thesis some unwanted side effects in Chile is touch up on and the work carried out by the Institutional frame work is also dealt with in a closing chapter.