Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council. Annual report on the implementation of the EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement

1 July 2015 marked the fourth anniversary of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the EU and its Member States and the Republic of Korea. The FTA has been provisionally applied since July 2011. On 13 December 2015, it entered formally into force following the ratification by EU Member States.

The EU-Korea FTA is the first of a new generation of FTAs, characterised by its far-reaching and comprehensive nature. It is also the EU's first trade deal with an Asian country and the most ambitious FTA implemented by the EU so far.

This is the fourth Annual Report on the implementation of the FTA, in accordance with the provisions of Regulation (EU) No 511/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2011 implementing the bilateral safeguard clause of the Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States and the Republic of Korea.

According to Article 13(1) of the Regulation, the Commission shall make public an annual report on the application and implementation of the Agreement. Furthermore, Article 3(3) stipulates that the Commission shall present an annual monitoring report to the European Parliament and the Council on updated statistics on imports from Korea of products in the sensitive sectors and those sectors to which monitoring has been extended.

This report therefore combines these two reporting requirements. The evolution of EU imports from Korea in the sectors covered by the monitoring and the results of the specific monitoring on duty drawback are presented in the Commission Staff Working Document attached to this report.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: SWD(2016)162: Implementation of Regulation (EU) No 511/2011 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD:2016:162:FIN

ESO: Background information: Trade boosted by five years of EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement http://www.europeansources.info/record/trade-boosted-by-five-years-of-eu-korea-free-trade-agreement/

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