Despite being the EU’s third-largest trading partner in Asia, Taiwan lags behind many Asian countries in negotiating a free-trade agreement (FTA) with the economic bloc, Tamas Maczak, acting head of the European Economic and Trade Office, said in Taipei yesterday.
“Some countries started earlier. [South] Korea and India are very good examples. These negotiations started three or four years ago and proceeded to formal consultations and evaluations of the feasibility of an FTA. Compared to that, probably Taiwan started a little bit late,” Maczak told reporters.
The center-right European People’s Party (EPP) on Thursday hosted a debate to discuss current and future trade relations between the EU and Taiwan, the first such hearing on the topic held at the European parliament.
Photo: CNA
It came after the parliament in May adopted a resolution strongly in favor of enhancing EU-Taiwan economic ties and the signing of an EU-Taiwan economic cooperation agreement.
Maczak said the hearing was “an important step” in explaining to the European Council and the European Commission how such an agreement could benefit both the EU and Taiwan.
The EU-South Korea FTA took effect yesterday, the EU’s first trade deal with an Asian country.
“[FTA] negotiations are ongoing with India, Singapore and Malaysia. [On] Vietnam, there was a decision to start negotiations and only recently I saw in the newspapers that the Indonesian ambassador announced that negotiations might start. The recent EU-Japan summit concluded that the possibility of an FTA would be very closely examined,” Maczak said.
The European Commission “is of the opinion that we should continue our cooperation and annual consultations between the EU and Taiwan,” he said.
Asked whether the EU’s “one China” policy was a hindrance to the EU negotiating an FTA with Taiwan, Maczak said the EU “is not going to change” its stance, but that “there are always practical ways of finding solutions.”
Despite Taiwan’s special status in the international arena, it is also a member of the WTO, under which EU members negotiate all kinds of agreements, he said.
A press statement posted on the Web site of the EPP quoted Laima Andrikiene, who sits on the European parliament’s International Trade Committee, as saying “European industry and businesses have a lot to gain and little to lose from deeper trade relations with Taiwan.”
At the hearing, Andrikiene highlighted the significant opportunities that exist for European exports of services and stressed the heavy dependence of the European IT sector on Taiwanese suppliers of high-end components and on Taiwanese contract manufacturers, the statement said.
“Members of the European parliament should take the initiative and advance the discussion on EU-Taiwan trade relations ... It is time we sent a strong signal to the Council and to member states that parliament stands behind the idea of deepening trade ties by negotiating a free-trade agreement with Taiwan,” Andrikiene said.
Daniel Caspary, EPP group coordinator on the International Trade Committee, stressed the need to strengthen cooperation between the EU and Taiwan, and to push for more comprehensive trade relations, the statement said.
“Europe, as well as Taiwan, would face big opportunities if we, Europeans, managed to improve our relationship with this important democratic market economy in East Asia. The European Commission should soon make a serious effort to gain additional welfare through an improved partnership with Taiwan,” Caspary was quoted as saying in the statement.
The press release added that Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Francis Liang (梁國新) told the hearing that “it seems quite natural that the EU and Taiwan should seriously look at the way to substantially improve our bilateral trade relations.”
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