Bilateral trade and investment agreements are one of the best options to enhance relations with key markets and regions, and improve trade and investment conditions for our companies. However they are not always an option and in other cases negotiations are stalled after a promising start. In these cases we need to use existing tools like the market access strategy that involves the European Commission, member states and business to address company problems in an efficient way. Moreover, many of the so-called new-generation free-trade agreements will be “living agreements”. This means that extra efforts will need to be made to ensure good monitoring and implementation, and to effectively address market access problems that might appear, among others in the regulatory area.
