CENTRAL EUROPEAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

CEFTA history

---- 1992 – Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia (today is Czech Republic and Slovakia)---- 2003 – Slovenia joined in 1996, Romania in 1997, Bulgaria in 1999 and Croatia in 2002.---- 2007 – Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia have joined the EU in 2004, followed by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 and thus left CEFTA. – Republic of Macedonia joined in 2006, followed by Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo.

The 'Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA)' is a trade agreement between countries in Central and South-Eastern Europe.

Contents

Members

Membership criteria

History

Original agreement

CEFTA 2006 agreement

Relations with the EU

List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita

See also

External link

Members

As of 1 May 2007, the parties of the CEFTA agreement are: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and UNMIK on behalf of Kosovo. Former parties are Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Parties of agreement		enforced	left
		1994	2004
		1994	2004
		1994	2004
			2004
		1996	2004
		1997	2007
		1999	2007
		2003	—
		2006	—
		2007	—
		2007	—
		2007	—
		2007	—
		2007	—
(UNMIK)		2007	—

Membership criteria

Former Poznań Declaration criteria:

★ World Trade Organisation membership

★ European Union Association Agreement with provisions for future full membership

★ Free Trade Agreements with the current 'CEFTA' member states
Current criteria since Zagreb meeting in 2005:

★ WTO membership ''or commitment to respect all WTO regulations''

★ ''any'' European Union Association Agreement

★ Free Trade Agreements with the current 'CEFTA' member states

History

Original agreement

Original CEFTA agreement was signed by Visegrád Group countries, that is by Poland, Hungary and Czech and Slovak republics (this time parts of the ) on 21 December 1992 in Kraków, Poland. It entered into force since July 1994. Through CEFTA, participating countries hoped to mobilize efforts to integrate Western European institutions and through this, to join European political, economic, security and legal systems, thereby consolidating democracy and free-market economics.
The agreement was amended by the agreements signed on 11 September 1995 in Brno and on 4 July 2003 in Bled.
Slovenia joined CEFTA in 1996, Romania in 1997, Bulgaria in 1998, Croatia in 2003 and Republic of Macedonia in 2006.

CEFTA 2006 agreement

All of the parties of the original agreement, except Croatia and the Republic of Macedonia, have joined the EU and thus left CEFTA. Therefore it was decided to extend CEFTA to cover the rest of the Balkan states, which already had completed a matrix of bilateral free trade agreements in the framework of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. On 6 April 2006, at the South East Europe Prime Ministers Summit in Bucharest, a joint declaration on expansion of CEFTA to Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, UNMIK on behalf of Kosovo, Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro was adopted. ^[1] Accession of Ukraine has also been discussed.^[2] The new enlarged agreement was initialled on 9 November 2006 in Brussels and has been signed on 19 December 2006 at the South East European Prime Ministers Summit in Bucharest.^[3] By early September 2007, all countries except Serbia had ratified the agreement; it had gone into effect in August. BiH ratified on 6 September 2007,^[4] and Serbia is expected to ratify it later in September 2007.^[5]

Relations with the EU

All former participating countries had previously signed association agreements with the EU, so in fact CEFTA has served as a preparation for full European Union membership. Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia joined the EU on 1 May 2004, and Bulgaria and Romania did so on 1 January 2007. Croatia does not yet have a date specified, but is in the process of accession negotiations, and is expected to join EU in 2009 or 2010. Macedonia is official candidate country of the EU.
At the EU's recommendation, the future members prepared for membership by establishing free trade areas. A large proportion of CEFTA foreign trade is with EU countries.

List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita

Croatia: 15,355$

Bosnia and Herzegovina: 9,163$

Republic of Macedonia: 8,300$

Serbia: 8,100$

Albania: 5,700$

Montenegro: 3,800$

Moldova: 2,000$

Kosovo: 1,800$

See also

★ Economy of Europe

★ Enlargement of the European Union

★ European Free Trade Association (EFTA)

★ European Free Trade Areas

★ Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe (including a matrix of bilateral FTAs)

★ Visegrád Group

External link

★ Original CEFTA Treaty

★ Preamble of the CEFTA Agreement Amendment of and Accession to the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA 2006 Agreement)