Leading S&D MEPs today welcomed the signing of the EU-Singapore free trade agreement and investment protection agreement and will now examine the final text in detail.
Singapore is by far the EU’s largest partner in South-East Asia, accounting for slightly under one- third of trade in goods and services, and roughly two-thirds of investments between the two regions. Over 10.000 European companies have their regional offices in Singapore.
The investment protection agreement will replace the existing bilateral investment treaties between 13 EU Member States and Singapore. Such treaties are based on outdated investment protection provisions, this will now be replaced with the EU’s new new approach on investment protection and enforcement mechanism -Investment Court System (ICS).
The S&D Group will fight for a progressive trade agreement based on sustainable growth and jobs that benefits citizens and workers.
“Today’s signature of the Free Trade Agreement and of the Investment Protection Agreement between the EU and Singapore is another success story of the European way of trade policy making. The deals are particularly meaningful in geopolitical terms, and they reconfirm the EU as the main global standard setter when it comes to trade policy. The European Parliament will now extremely carefully scrutinize both agreements in order to assess their compatibility with the interests of the European workers, consumers and investors,” Alessia Mosca MEP, S&D Group spokesperson for trade.
“I welcome today’s signature of the EU-Singapore free trade agreement and of the investment protection agreement. Trade negotiations were concluded already in 2012. I therefore regret the long delay to reach this point. These are the first trade agreement and investment protection agreement the EU has signed with an ASEAN country. This represents a crucial step in strengthening EU economic and trade relations with the whole ASEAN region, which is even more important now that we can no longer rely on the US as a political and trading partner,” said David Martin, S&D MEP responsible for the EU Singapore trade agreement.
