CSD meeting on Georgia and Moldova: draft inception report of the ex-post evaluation

Meeting details

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The Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area ('DCFTA') included within the EU’s Association Agreements with Georgia and Moldova respectively, aims at opening up markets on both sides (the EU and the partner country), increasing the stability and predictability of the trade and investment environment, and promoting sustainable development. These two DCFTAs have been applied provisionally since 1 September 2014, and entered into full effect on 1 July 2016.

The DCFTAs with Georgia and Moldova are amongst the first of a new generation of EU free trade agreements (FTAs), characterised by their deep and comprehensive nature and high level of ambition. The DCFTAs cover elimination of tariffs on trade in goods as well as the reduction of non-tariff barriers to trade in goods, services and investment (market access). In addition, the DCFTAs contain a unique commitment on the part of Georgia and Moldova to approximate their national legislation to the EU acquis in selected policy areas, such as technical regulation and standards, intellectual property rights, public procurement, services (e.g. financial and telecommunication services), sanitary and phytosanitary measures, competition and customs procedures. The DCFTAs also have a chapter on trade and sustainable development that integrates the objective of sustainable development in all those policy areas.

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade awarded a contract for an 'Ex-post evaluation of the implementation of the Georgia and Moldova DCFTAs' to EY Consulting/CEPS. The Inception Report of the study describes the methodological approach, the draft intervention hypothesis, the consultation strategy, the timeline and sets the ground of the analysis.

The purpose of this meeting is to present to the EU Civil Society Organisations the current state of the evaluation process as presented in the draft inception report, exchange views on it and collect feedback from civil society.

The draft report will be published on this page two weeks ahead of the Civil Society Dialogue. Registered participants will be informed of the publication.

Lead speakers

- Deputy Head of Unit – Europe and Eastern Neighbourhood Unit, Directorate-General for Trade, European Commission
- CEPS team leader

Moderator

Civil Society Coordination - Transparency, Civil society and Communication Unit, Directorate-General for Trade, European Commission

Agenda

1. Introduction
2. Presentation of the interim report
3. Open discussion with stakeholders

The meeting will take place via WEBEX. Access code and password will be sent to registered participants. We would be grateful if participants could launch their WEBEX connection at least 30 minutes in advance of the meeting so that any technical problems can be arranged in time before the meeting.