Free trade agreements of the European Union

The European Union has concluded free trade agreements.
The European Union negotiates free trade deals on behalf of all of its member states, as the member states have granted the EU an "exclusive competence" to conclude trade agreements. Even so, member states' governments control every step of the process :

Before negotiations start, member states' governments approve the negotiating mandate;
During negotiations, member states' governments are regularly briefed on the progress of negotiations and can update the negotiations mandate or suspend negotiations;
Upon conclusion of negotiations, member states' governments decide whether the agreement should be signed;
After approval from the European Parliament and upon ratification in each member state parliament, member states' governments decide whether the agreement should be concluded and enter into effect.

The list below only includes countries that have an FTA with the European Union according to the WTO.

Free trade agreements in force

State

No of jurisdictions represented

Signed

Provisional
application

In force since

Notes

Relations

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Free trade agreements provisionally applied

State

Signed

Provisional
Application

Ratification

Notes

Relations

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Negotiated free trade agreements

Ongoing negotiations as of January 2026:

Competence

The European Court of Justice has held that investor-state arbitration provisions falls under competency shared between European Union and its member states and that for this reason, the ratification of such mixed agreements should be approved by the EU as well as by each of the union's member states. This court decision has resulted in a new architecture of external trade negotiations which will have two components:

a free trade agreement - related exclusively to trade matters - which can be adopted at the EU level;
an investment agreement - containing investment, arbitration and other non-trade provisions - which needs to be ratified by the member states as well.

Impact to consumers

One study found that the trade agreements that the EU implemented over the period 1993-2013 have, on average, increased the quality of imported goods by 7% and therefore "lowered quality-adjusted prices by close to 7%," without having much of an impact on the non-adjusted price.