The effects of Free Trade Agreements on labor, industry and regional development

OCIPEx  Strain

In June 2020, the Observatory of International Affairs and Foreign Policy (OCIPEx) and the Center for Argentine Political Economy (CEPA) published a report on the EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement and its effects on employment, industry, regional development, and the impact of the pandemic. The parties recently completed the legal review of the agreement between the two regional blocs.

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In its introduction, the report notes that "ACurrently, Argentina and its Mercosur partners are negotiating bi-regional and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with various blocs and countries around the world. Of particular note are the agreements currently under legal review with the European Union and EFTA, and the bilateral negotiations with South Korea, Singapore, and India, among others. In all these cases, the negotiations are both asymmetrical, due to the differences in the economic weight of the parties involved, and WTO+ agreements, meaning they extend beyond strictly commercial matters and encompass strategic areas of interest to the states, such as government procurement, services, and intellectual property rights.… LTrade liberalization—in the abstract—is not synonymous with economic reactivation, and when we talk about asymmetrical free trade agreements, liberalization becomes an obstacle to inclusive and sustainable economic development. That is why we believe it is necessary to conduct economic, social, environmental, and legal impact studies of these treaties, with the participation of the business, labor, and academic sectors, so that the Argentine government can pursue a negotiating strategy that defends employment, production, and national and regional development."