EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement - A Normative Power Analysis

Abstract

The European Union (EU) and South Korea (Korea) created the world’s biggest free trade deal since 1994 in 2011. It was not only the biggest in terms of economic size, it was also the most ambitious one that the EU has ever negotiated. The EU-Korea free trade agreement (EU-Korea FTA) is ambitious in the sense that it tackles not only the tariff barriers but also the non-tariff ones to reach full liberalization in trade. This article aims to weigh the European normative power via this interesting trade deal, the EU-Korea FTA. It takes a normative perspective to examine the concretization of the EU normative power with measurable standards, and tries to discern the impacts of the European values and norms on Korean reforms in trade. The article will focus on the regulatory network built up by the two sides in order to enforce and monitor the provisions especially on non-tariff barriers(NTBs) issues, and it concludes with the finding that the degree of normativity that the EU norms possess in Korean market is moderate, with strong rhetorical commitment, slow formal adoption, and unremarkable behavioural compliance. Certain European values have indeed been transformed into concrete regulations in the FTA, such as IPRs regulation, sustainable development, etc. However, for the implementation of the agreement to be effective, it takes not only government’s endeavour to enforce regulatory framework, but also more communication and cooperation on the social level to create this normative legitimacy for the Korean society to take in the European norms and values. It is believed that continuous dialogues through the regulatory network on different layers of the society would still be necessary on fostering and strengthening the bilateral relationship between the EU and Korea.