European Union(EU)-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement
On 29 November 2012, the Council authorised the Commission to enter into negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Japan. The Free Trade Agreement with Japan was renamed the "Economic Partnership Agreement" (the EPA) at the time of the conclusion of an agreement in principle on 6 July 2017.
On the basis of the negotiating directives adopted by the Council in 2012 the Commission has negotiated with Japan an ambitious and comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with a view to creating new opportunities and legal certainty for trade and investment between both partners. The texts of the EPA after the finalisation of the negotiations were published in December 2017.
The EPA does not include investment protection standards and investment protection dispute resolution because the still ongoing negotiations on those subject matters could not have been completed at the time of the conclusion of the EPA negotiations. The firm commitment on both sides is to complete the investment protection negotiations as soon as possible, in light of their shared commitment to a stable and secure investment environment in the Union and Japan. Investment protection, when agreed, will therefore form a separate bilateral investment agreement.
Chapter 4 is dedicated to Trade Facilitation whereas Chapter 8 covers Electronic Commerce.
More information available here.