EU trade agreements with third countries cover more than 70 markets over the world and offer new opportunities for EU companies, including SMEs. Almost 36 million jobs depend on EU exports, of which at least 6 million have been created directly by exporting SMEs. Europe, more than most other world regions, depends on access to foreign markets for its prosperity, and this trend will only increase further: 90% of world growth will be generated outside the EU by 2020.
Despite recent noteworthy improvements in getting the benefits of trade agreements to our European businesses, such as the annual publication the
Report on Implementation of EU Free Trade Agreements and the establishment of the Market Access Partnership, the interplay between the relevant actors still needs to be further strengthened. Still too many European businesses are not aware of the EU trade agreements, and are not sufficiently well instructed how to use them in practice.
Chambers of commerce and regional authorities are essential elements to improving implementation across the European Union as they are closest to local businesses and able to provide information relevant to the regional characteristics. To find out what the needs and requirements are in each region, the
CoR and
EUROCHAMBRES welcome you to participate in this survey.
The survey will focus on the more significant FTAs (those in force and those concluded, but not yet in force) and it will run till mid-December. The results will be presented at a CoR-EUROCHAMBRES workshop.
The results of the survey will also feed into a CoR opinion, which will look into the broader challenges EU trade policy is facing and how public authorities and SMEs could use, and benefit from, trade agreements.
Start the Survey!
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The
survey is available in all EU languages; to select your preferred language, click on the drop-down menu on the right of the screen
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The survey will be open until 13 December midnight
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All responses will be kept confidential
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For more information, please contact
econ-survey-cor@cor.europa.eu