Summary
If done right, Clean Trade and Investment Partnership (CTIPs) have a real potential to successfully add to the EU’s trade policy toolbox, being faster to negotiate and implement than FTAs. To achieve this, they need to go beyond previous Memoranda of Understanding, limited by design. The negotiations with South Africa will set the standards for future CTIPs; it is therefore important to ‘get them right’.
Key recommendations
- Wide scope: also encompassing the chemical sector, including for regulatory cooperation, and using a comprehensive definition of raw materials.
- Value for business: CTIPs should secure offtake agreements for EU companies and generate financial support for EU private sector investments in South Africa.
- Priority areas for commitment and cooperation: Critical Raw Materials (especially phosphorus/phosphate rock, platinum group metals, fluorspar, rare earth elements), waste management and energy security.
- Measuring success: annual assessments and delivery reports on the CTIP to assess if the agreement achieves the intended benefits.
- Forward-looking: start negotiating complementary investment promotion and protection treaties and to modernise the EU-South African Development Community FTA.