REGIONAL COOPERATION AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

CEFTA-2006 TRADE COOPERATION
within the Western Balkans. It is supposed to help the establishment of a free trade area
for agricultural and non-agricultural goods among Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Macedonia, Moldova, Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia and Monte Negro. The free trade area for
non-agricultural goods started to function at the end of 2008, while the free trade area for
agricultural goods was supposed to become in full function in May 2009. The establishment
of the full free trade area is supposed to be realized at the end of 2010. Except for goods, the
agreement should provide trade liberalization also of services, full protection of intellectual
property rights and achievement of fair-competition practices and gradual liberalization of
public procurement of the member-states.
Liberalization of trade exchange of non-agricultural goods under the Agreement considers
elimination of all import tariffs which not comply with Article VIII of GATT from 1994,
complete elimination of export tariffs and measures with equivalent effects and elimination
of all quantitative instruments and measures with equivalent effect (Draft of the Agreement
on Amendment of and Accession to the Central European Free Trade Agreement, 2006:4-6).
Trade liberalization for non-agricultural goods under CEFTA-2006 started at the beginning
of 2007 and was fully implemented by the end of 2008.
Full liberalization of agricultural goods trade under CEFTA-2006 was effectuated at the
beginning of May this year. The new regime completely eliminates tariffs and quotas,
as well as export subsidies. If a member-state continues to persist on the use of a certain
export subsidy, the rest of the members may use compensatory duties for protection and
implementation of fair-competition rules on their markets. They are also obliged to apply
WTO rules on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (Draft of the Agreement on Amendment
of and Accession to the Central European Free Trade Agreement, 2006:7-9).
CEFTA-2006 also complies with the WTO TBT Agreement and obliges its member-states
to harmonize their national technical standards with those of the WTO and the EU by the
31 st of December 2010 (Draft of the Agreement on Amendment of and Accession to the
Central European Free Trade Agreement, 2006:10).
Even more important is the fact that member-countries have to facilitate and unify customs
and transit procedures and formalities and to provide easy exchange of goods through their
border lines. Trade facilitation under CEFTA-2006 also means simplification of the rules
of origin of goods. Regarding the rules of origin the multilateral agreement provides the
opportunity for intra-CEFTA cumulation of origin. This means providing proof of origin
of a good if it consists of raw-materials and components imported from one or more of the
CEFTA-2006 member-states (Tosheva and Efremov, 2007:16).
Articles XXII, XXIII and XXIV of the Agreement allow the implementation of safeguard
and antidumping measures and regulate their application (Draft of the Agreement on
Amendment of and Accession to the Central European Free Trade Agreement, 2006:17-
20). Safeguard and antidumping measures should be introduced on bilateral basis in the
damaged economy of the importer and they are relevant only for the exporting country that
caused the damage. The damage is defined as a serious injury of the competitive advantages
of domestic producers of the importing country or serious damage of any sector of the
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