Importance and motives of preferential trade agreements in the EU’s external trade

Abstract

As a result of previous multilateral negotiations tariff rates are generally low and cannot explain the reasons for recent proliferation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). The aim of the paper is to look for other motivations of EU PTAs and to assess their importance for the EU. The main research methods are statistical, review and assessment of WTO documents and critical analysis of literature.

Keywords

• preferential trade agreements
• unilateral trade preferences
• wto
• eu preferences
• regulatory barriers
• motives of ptas
• f13
• f15