Talk:Customs union/Archives/2013

Central American Customs Union

This was added without comments and links, so can someone find more info on it, provide links, etc. To me it seems as "proposed" at most currently... Alinor 07:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Does EFTA have a CET?

Is EFTA a Customs Union? Alinor 10:27, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

No. Alinor (talk) 15:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Major problem with WTO list utilized on the page

same as for FTAs/EMUs/... - see here

Blindly utilising the list of FTA/CU from the WTO is not good. In many cases this "official" list is wrong. There are CUs/FTAs/etc. NOT NOTIFIED to the WTO (in breach of the rules, or just because the participants are not WTO members - for example Russia). In other cases some agreement is reported as "in force", but in practice it is not implemented. I think that the previous arrangement was better - the FTAs/CUs were listed in a single location (eg. FTA-only on the FTA list, CU+FTA on the CU list, etc.), only "proper" agreements were listed (some non-functional, etc. were ALSO mentioned in a different category, some "wishfull/to do" agreements were listed as "future/in negotiations"). Some current examples for wrong entries (but maybe there are other MISSING):

• EU-San Marino is MISSING
• EEA is NOT a Customs Union. It is a single market WITHOUT Customs union.
• Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) - declarion of intent to do a customs union, not functional so far
• Central American Common Market (CACM) and Andean Community (CAN) - so many exclusions and bilateral FTAs between some members and non-members that practicaly render the CU to void.

Alinor (talk) 15:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

To my knowledge WTO is the best reference we have. This now enters the speculative realm. You have to define single market, customs union, monetary union and so forth. You will have to go into details, describing the difference between economic and monetary union and monetary union. The existing classification simplifies the matter greatly. In fact the case for each organization is unique. Some agreements are even temporary. So I wish you good luck if you are up to sorting out this mess. But you have to present REALLY good reference based on actual documents signed. And further on an even better reference to prove if the actual documents work or not. I consider this to be a "mission impossible" one. But still good luck! Emilfaro (talk) 13:36, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

WTO list is not "official list" - it is just a list of NOTIFYIED by the WTO members agreements. Non-members of the WTO (even the observers) do not notify their agreements there. Also it is common that some agreement is notifyied much later after it came into force (that's why in the WTO list there are two columns - "entry into force" and "WTO notification"). Additionally sometimes the WTO list is wrong because of outdated information - members of some particular agreement are different today than at the time of notification (they can be both more or less). Sometimes this is reflected, but sometimes in is not. The WTO list can only be a starting point, but it does not mean these two things: "if something is not in the WTO list - then it should be removed from the article" and "if something is in the WTO list - then it should be added to the article" - this blind copy/paste is wrong because of the above reasons.

So, EU-San Marino, Switzerland-Liechtenstein, Israel-Palestinian Authority were DELETED when someone changed the old view of the article to the new WTO-centric view.

About the classification of FTA, CU, single market, monetary union, EMU. In the pre-WTO-centric-view revisions of these articles there was already reached a consisted, consensus, referenced classification, generally the following: FTA is zero-duty trade between participants; CU is FTA with common external tariff; single market is FTA that extends not only to goods, but also to services, capital and hiring; monetary union is utilizing the same currency (with distictions for adoption of foreign currency or replacing currencies with a common one, etc.); EMU is single market with monetary union. The WTO list has different classification: PTA (pre-FTA), FTA, CU, EIA (EIA is actually FTA extended to services only, single market or EMU).

In the current list the European Economic Area is listed as a Customs Union that is simply wrong.

And lastly, about the WTO notifications list - in the most cases agreements are notified as "entered into force" for the time of their signing/initialization, but espicialy when dealing with large trade blocs with numerous members (EU, ASEAN, etc.) - the actual ratification procedures can take years to finalize. In some rare cases developments during this time force the prospected members not to ratify - and so the agreement does not enter into force for the not-ratified state, but it is still listed in the notification. Alinor (talk) 06:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I sorted most of the organizations to the applicable lists (Economic union, Customs and monetary union, Economic and monetary union, etc.) - eg. listing each only once, at the "highest" level, as the lower levels have a note about what higher levels contain the respective arrangement (eg. on single-market-list is written that EMUs also have single markets). I haven't checked yet the FTAs, but will do this soon. Alinor (talk) 13:07, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

May want to represent SACU as older.

According to the Southern African Customs Union page, SACU is the oldest customs union in existence. That is further backed up by the WTO article referenced. The date listed in this article (15 July 2004) is the renegotiation, but it has existed since 1910. This page should reflect that. ARSchmitz (talk) 08:00, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Add Russia + Kazakhstan + Belarus ... [1], with Tajikistan observer ... Eurasian Economic Community

Add Russia + Kazakhstan + Belarus ... [2], with Tajikistan observer ... Eurasian Economic Community 99.29.187.54 (talk) 17:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Untitled

Does a Customs Union aways mean Customs Union+Free Trade Area? possible exeptions: EU-Turkey Customs Union and others.

Yes, and of course part of the EU-Turkey association agreement are the provisions on "free trade" (not covering agricultural products I think). More interesting is the situation with the customs union of the Andean Community - it is breached by some countries (Columbia, ...) - they sign FTAs with third countries (USA) and this is incompatible with the CET (eg. the customs union). Alinor 07:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)