The Philippines and the European Union are set to begin scoping studies for a free trade agreement.
In a statement , the EU Commission said yesterday that the EU and the Philippines will shortly kick off a bilateral ‘scoping process’ to assess to which extent they share a mutual understanding on the future FTA.
It added that if this process concludes successfully, and after consultations with the Member States, the EU and the Philippines would be in a position to resume FTA negotiations.
“The Philippines is a key partner for us in the Indo-Pacific region, and with the launch of this scoping process we are paving the way to taking our partnership to the next level,” Ursula von der Leyen, Commission President, said.
With the country’s positive trajectory towards reaching upper-middle income status, Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual said it is high time for the Philippines and the EU to resume FTA negotiations.
“To maintain strong economic relations with the EU, it is important that we solidify our economic relations through the PH-EU FTA before the Philippines eventually loses its GSP+ status due to our continued economic growth,” Pascual said.
Under the leadership of President Bongbong Marcos , the DTI along with our inter-agency negotiating team will closely work with counterparts from the European Commission to ensure the success of the scoping exercise this year.
We look forward to the results of this exercise in support of our mutual objective to officially resume the PH-EU FTA negotiations at the most opportune time,” he added.
