Central European Free Trade Agreement

 

Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA)
Map of Europe indicating current CEFTA members
Type		Trade agreement
Member states		6 Balkan states, Moldova, Kosovo
Establishment
-	Signed	21 December 1992
Area
-	Total	km²   sq mi
Population
-	estimate	30 million
-	Density	100.6/km²   /sq mi
Time zone		CET / EET (UTC+1 / +2)
-	Summer (DST)	CEST / EEST (UTC+2 / +3)

CEFTA history

CEFTA member states      EU member states 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.

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
Poland		1994	2004
Hungary		1994	2004
Czechoslovakia	Czech Republic	1994	2004
	Slovakia		2004
Slovenia		1996	2004
Romania		1997	2007
Bulgaria		1999	2007
Croatia		2003	—
Republic of Macedonia		2006	—
Bosnia and Herzegovina		2007	—
Moldova		2007	—
Serbia		2007	—
Montenegro		2007	—
Albania		2007	—
Kosovo (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 Czech and Slovak Federative Republic) 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] The agreement went into effect on 26 July 2007 for Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova and Montenegro, and on 22 August for Croatia. Bosnia and Herzegovina ratified it on 6 September,^[4] while Serbia completed the final legal procedures on 24 September 2007.^[5] The agreement aims at establishing a free trade zone in the region by 31 December 2010.

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$
Serbia: 8,100$
Republic of Macedonia: 7,645$
Albania: 6,259$
Montenegro: 5,028$
Moldova: 2,962$
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

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Most active regional blocs
as of 2004

Regional bloc1	Area (km²)	Population	GDP (PPP) ($US)		Member states1
			in millions	per capita
Agadir	1,703,910	126,066,286	513,674	4,075	4
AU	29,797,500	897,548,804	1,515,000	1,896	53
ASEAN	4,400,000	553,900,000	2,172,000	4,044	10
CACM	422,614	37,816,598	159,536	4,219	5
CARICOM	462,344	14,565,083	64,219	4,409	(14+1)3
CCASG / GCC	2,285,844	35,869,438	536,223	14,949	6
CEFTA	298,148	28,929,682	222,041	7,675	(7+1)3
EU	4,325,675	496,198,605	12,025,415	24,235	27
EurAsEC	20,789,100	208,067,618	1,689,137	8,118	6
EFTA	529,600	12,233,467	471,547	38,546	4
GUAM	810,506	63,764,600	456,173	7,154	4
NAFTA	21,588,638	430,495,039	15,279,000	35,491	3
PARTA	528,151	7,810,905	23,074	2,954	(14+2)3
SAARC	5,136,740	1,467,255,669	4,074,031	2,777	8
Unasur / Unasul	17,339,153	370,158,470	2,868,430	7,749	12
UN and countries for reference2	Area (km²)	Population	GDP (PPP) ($US)		Units4
			in millions	per capita
UN	133,178,011	6,411,682,270	55,167,630	8,604	192
Brazil	8,514,877	188,078,261	1,594,482	9,108	27
Canada	9,984,670	32,507,874	1,165,000	35,200	13
India	3,287,590	1,102,600,000	4,042,000	3,700	35
Japan	377,873	128,085,000	4,220,000	33,100	47
PR China5	9,596,960	1,306,847,624	10,000,000	7,600	33
Russia	17,075,200	143,782,338	1,723,000	12,100	89
USA	9,631,418	300,000,000	12,980,000	43,500	50
Source: CIA World Factbook 2005, IMF WEO Database. Legend      smallest value among the blocs compared     largest value among the blocs compared Footnotes 1 Including data only for full and most active members. 2 Including the largest five countries by area, population and GDP (PPP), but not #4 in population or #5 in GDP (PPP). 3 Including non-sovereign autonomous areas of other states. 4 Members or administrative divisions. 5 Data for the People's Republic of China does not include Hong Kong, Macau, or regions administered    by the Republic of China (Taiwan).

External links

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

Members of the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA)
Albania · Bosnia and Herzegovina · Croatia · Kosovo1 · Republic of Macedonia · Moldova · Montenegro · Serbia 1 Province of Serbia; currently administered by the UN.

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