On July 6, a ceremony of initialing the Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (ECPA) between Uzbekistan and the European Union was held in Brussels.
Deputy PM/Minister of Investments and Foreign Trade, Sardor Umurzokov and the High Representative of the European Union, Pedro Serrano attended the event.
The new agreement was developed to replace the current partnership and cooperation agreement signed between Uzbekistan and the EU in 1996 and is expected to bring bilateral cooperation to a new level.
The current Agreement mainly includes provisions on political dialogue, democracy, cooperation in the field of human rights, promotion of cultural relations, financial and technical cooperation, investments, trade in goods and services, as well as protection of intellectual property.
ECPA covers a wider range of issues. These include provisions related to trade and related matters, including customs administration, technical regulation, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, competition and the operation of state-owned enterprises, public procurement, dispute resolution, and other areas.
In addition, as a result of the inclusion of the main provisions of the World Trade Organization, the new Agreement will significantly expand the scope of relations in the fields of investment partnership, trade in goods, services and intellectual property.
Also, the ECPA agreement includes new areas such as foreign policy, security, conflict prevention and risk management, personal data protection, asylum and border management, illegal migration, fight against organized crime and corruption, fight against terrorism.
It should be noted that the new agreement is no longer an agreement, but creates a full-fledged mechanism of large-scale cooperation between Uzbekistan and the European Union, among other areas, in the field of trade and economic relations.
Negotiations on the ECPA draft began in February 2019 and ended at the end of June 2022. During this period, 10 rounds of negotiations and more than 150 meetings were held at the level of experts, chief negotiators and members of the government.
