The Pacific Alliance
The Pacific Alliance follows an approach to regionalism framed as open regionalism, it enhances the free movement of economic factors: capital, goods, services and persons and makes regional integration instrumental to the members’ insertion into the global economy.
The basic objectives of the Pacific Alliance are:
- Constructing in a participatory and consensual manner a deep integration area to advance progressively towards the free circulation of goods, services, capital and persons;
- Boosting growth, development and competitiveness of the state members’ economies with a view towards welfare, reduction of socioeconomic inequality and social inclusion for their people;
- Becoming a platform for political articulation, economic and commercial integration, in order to cast those strengths to the world and especially towards the Asia Pacific region;
Two instruments rule the legal basis of the Pacific Alliance: the Framework Agreement of the Pacific Alliance, signed by the state parties on the 6 June 2012, and the Additional Protocol to the Framework Agreement of the Pacific Alliance (the Commercial Protocol) signed by the parties on 10 February 2014.
The first agreement sets the core of the integration scheme in terms of the underlining principles, approach to regionalism and objectives. The second agreement regulates various disciplines in the establishment of a free trade area among the members that include: market access provisions, rules of origin, transparency, trade facilitation, government procurement, cross-border trade in services, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures and investment provisions. The Framework agreement entered into force on the 20th July 2015. The Commercial Protocol entered into force on 1st May 2016.
Observer and candidate countries for full membership: Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador
Observer and candidate countries to associate membership: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore (and potentially the Republic of Korea)
Observer Countries: Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Popular Republic of China, Turkey, France, Spain, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago, Egypt, Morocco, India, Israel, Singapore, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Czech Republic, Haiti, Hungary, Indonesia, Poland, Sweden, Thailand, Croatia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Georgia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Belarus, United Arab Emirates, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Philippines, and Kazakhstan (59 observers in total).
(updated on the 15th of August 2019)
