(New) EU Standards in Preferential Services Trade Liberalization

Abstract

While the European Union (EU) is exporting more services to non-EU countries (€1.072 trillion in 2019) than it imports, services appear to not particularly enjoy priority in EU preferential trade agreements (PTAs). This chapter assesses the scope of services trade liberalization in EU PTAs by means of legal empirical analysis. Standardization can be found specifically in new EU rules in a number of internet-related services, in delivery services, in temporary movement of natural persons, and in procedures for mutual recognition. A comparison shows that EU PTAs are incorporating elements of the proposed Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) and of the recently concluded Joint Initiative on Services Domestic Regulation, while already moving ahead in depth and specificity of obligations in selected services sectors. The chapter concludes with a discussion of potential reasons for the relatively unambitious scope of services trade liberalization in EU PTAs vis-à-vis the quite substantive regulatory ambition in selected services sectors.