The EU is negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Indonesia with the objective to facilitate and create new market access, increase trade between the EU and Indonesia as well as to expand direct investment. The aim is to conclude an agreement similar in coverage to what the EU achieved in its trade agreements with Singapore in 2014 and Vietnam in 2015.
Process
The EU officially launched negotiations with Indonesia on 18 July 2016. The fifth round was held from 9 to 13 July in Brussels, and the next round is scheduled for the week of 15 October in Indonesia.
Before launching talks the EU carried out a joint scoping exercise with Indonesia to determine the scope and the level of ambition of a future trade agreement. The exercise was successfully concluded in April 2016 and in July 2016 EU governments authorised the Commission to start negotiations.
The European Commission negotiates the FTA on behalf of all the EU Member States. The EU’s Trade department regularly debriefs and consults with Member States and the European Parliament on the state of play of the negotiations.
Background on bilateral trade relations with ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations)
Within the ASEAN region, the EU has already concluded negotiations with Singapore and Vietnam – which hopefully will enter into force in the course of 2018. Other negotiations with the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia have also been launched. The ultimate objective is for bilateral trade agreements with individual ASEAN countries to serve as building blocks towards a future region-to-region agreement between the EU and ASEAN.
EU text proposals
The EU has submitted the following text proposals to Indonesia as a basis for discussion. These texts only constitute the EU’s initial proposals for legal texts on topics in the EU-Indonesia trade agreement and the EU reserves the right to make subsequent changes to the text by editing, supplementing or removing, at any time, all or part of the text. For explanatory purposes, text proposals are published accompanied by short factsheets on the different topics.
The actual text in the final agreement will be the result of negotiations between the EU and Indonesia. The full text of the final agreement will be made public once negotiations have been concluded – well in advance of its signature and ratification.