Manila Times - 18 October 2025
PH-EU free trade talks to resume next week
By Chynna Grace Ong
The Philippines and European Union officials will meet next week in Cebu to hold a fourth round of free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, EU Ambassador Massimo Santoro told reporters on Thursday at the European-Philippine Business Dialogue & European Investors’ Night at Fairmont Makati.
“We are at a very good stage... These negotiations are taking place in Cebu... to show solidarity with the city after the recent earthquake,” Santoro said.
The EU — composed of 27 member countries — was the Philippines’ fourth-largest trading partner in 2024, accounting for 7 percent of the latter’s total goods transactions worldwide.
The Philippines, meanwhile, was 40th among EU’s business partners, accounting for 0.3 percent of the multi-governmental organization’s total trade in goods.
Bilateral trade in goods between the EU and the Philippines amounted to 16.8 billion euros in 2024, with the EU posting a deficit of 1.3 billion euros.
Total trade in services amounted to 8.5 billion euros in 2023, with the EU’s deficit at 0.4 billion euros.
Likewise in 2023, the EU’s foreign direct investments (FDIs) in the Philippines added up to 14.2 billion euros, while the Philippines’ FDI in the EU was 2.1 billion euros.
Negotiations for an EU-Philippines FTA were proposed in December 2015, and the first round of talks was held in May 2016 in Brussels, Belgium.
However, second-round negotiations set on Feb. 13-17, 2017, in Cebu were put on hold.
In July 2023, both parties engaged in an extensive technical stocktaking exercise to assess if conditions were right to resume talks — which happened in March the following year.
The first one on Oct. 14-18, 2024, in Brussels covered a wide range including transparency, sustainable food systems (SFS), trade remedies, services, competition and subsidies, customs and trade facilitation, an anti-fraud clause, trade in goods, digital trade, intellectual property rights, geographical indications, rules of origin, small and medium enterprises good regulatory practices (GRP), state enterprises, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, trade and sustainable development, mutual administrative assistance, dispute settlement and exceptions.
The second, held on Feb. 10-14 in Manila, continued on transparency, micro, small and medium enterprises and SFS.
The third and most recent, on June 16-20 in Brussels, concluded the chapters on SFS and GRP.
What happens after the fourth round next week depends on how the talks would advance, Santoro said, adding that the current state of EU GSP+ is “very high.”
EU GSP+ (Generalized System of Preferences Plus) is a special trade arrangement that gives developing countries zero-duty access to the EU market for a wide range of products, an incentive for sustainable development and good governance.
“There are something like 6,000 to 7,000 line products that [can take advantage] of the GSP+ Plus system. This is a very powerful tool for Philippine products,” Santoro said.
The EU-PH FTA talks are expected to conclude by 2027.
