After Indonesia, India and Australia, the European Union is on track to conclude a free-trade agreement with the Philippines, continuing its diversification strategy in the face of trade tensions with China and American tariffs.
Brussels and Manila have reached « a principled agreement (…), marking an important milestone for both parties », said on Tuesday the European Commissioner for Trade Maros Sefcovic and his Philippine counterpart Cristina Roque, following a videoconference.
The two parties have agreed to remove their reciprocal tariffs on more than 97% of goods, said Maros Sefcovic at a press conference, describing it as « very good news and a major opportunity for European exporters », and hoping to finalize a definitive agreement « in the coming months ».
This agreement in sight with a country of 113 million inhabitants, experiencing strong growth, should especially benefit European producers in sectors such as transport equipment, pharmaceuticals, machine tools, but also producers of pork, poultry and other dairy products.
The Copa Cogeca, the umbrella organization bringing together the main European farm unions, welcomed the promised advances for EU farmers.
The EU already trades around 18 billion euros of goods and 10 billion euros of services with the Philippines each year. It had launched negotiations with Manila about a decade ago, but they were suspended in 2017 before resuming in 2024.
Caught between the United States’ tariffs and China’s industrial competition, the EU is betting on diversification of its trading partners.
Furthermore, Europeans continue their efforts to amicably resolve their trade imbalances with China. The 27 largely attribute their colossal trade deficit with China (around one billion euros per day) to Beijing’s unfair practices, which they accuse of destroying whole swaths of European industry.
Mr. Sefcovic is due to travel to China on October 8-9 at the invitation of Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, a visit during which he hopes to obtain concrete results. « We are talking about the future of our economy and the European social model », and « it is very important for me that this dialogue works and yields tangible results », he repeated.
