Trade in Services and Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications in the EU and International Systems: Multilateralism à la Carte?

Jonathan Boscarato
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Jonathan Boscarato: Trade Policy Professional, Australia-EU FTA Negotiations

Chapter Chapter 8 in The European Union and the Evolving Architectures of International Economic Agreements, 2023, pp 133-152 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract At the multilateral level, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (‘GATS’) seeks to create a competitive playing field for international trade services just as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (‘GATT’) does for goods. However, the liberalisation of services does not simply rely on removing barriers at the border, but requires much deeper efforts at smoothing out behind-the-border technical barriers. Mutual Recognition Agreements (‘MRAs’) for professional qualifications are an important enabling framework that help to liberalise international trade in services. However, very few provisions of World Trade Organisation (‘WTO’) agreements deal with such mutual recognition frameworks. For this reason, regulation is mostly found in bilateral and regional preferential free trade agreements (‘FTAs’), with the notable exceptions of the EU and the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement (‘ANZCERTA’) frameworks. The EU has been engaged in separate FTA negotiations with Australia and New Zealand for the last few years, with the former now reaching its conclusion, and the latter inked in June 2022. Both the European Union (‘EU’) and ANZCERTA having very ambitious and far-reaching frameworks for the recognition of professional qualifications, it may be expected that similarly ambitious provisions might be struck in the context of their FTA negotiations. While this does not appear to be the case, this contribution examines these negotiations, and the parallel negotiations each of these parties have with the United Kingdom, as useful examples to contrast different approaches to the recognition of professional services, and explore what a broader professional qualifications recognition framework may look like in the future—how is regulation evolving in areas such as accountancy, health and legal services, and what, if any, is the impact of the divide between common law and civil law countries on the mutual recognition of qualifications?

Keywords: European Union; ANZCERTA; UK; Professional qualifications; Mutual recognition agreement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-99-2329-8_8

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