CEFTA encyclopedia topics

Members

As of 1 May 2007, the parties of the CEFTA agreement are: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and UNMIK (on behalf of Kosovo).

Former parties are Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Their CEFTA membership ended when they joined the EU.

Parties of agreement	joined	left
	1992	2004
	1992	2004
	1992	2004
	1992	2004
	1996	2004
	1997	2007
	1999	2007
	2003	—
	2006	—
	2007	—
	2007	—
	2007	—
	2007	—
	2007	—
UNMIK (Kosovo)	2007	—

Membership criteria

Former Poznań Declaration criteria:

World Trade Organisation membership
European Union Association Agreement with provisions for future full membership
Free Trade Agreements with the current CEFTA member states

Current criteria since Zagreb meeting in 2005:

WTO membership or commitment to respect all WTO regulations
any European Union Association Agreement
Free Trade Agreements with the current CEFTA member states

Current members

State	Official name	Capital	GDP in millions (PPP)	GDP per capita (PPP)
Albania	Republic of Albania	Tirana	21,160	6,649
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Sarajevo	42,998	10,715
Croatia	Republic of Croatia	Zagreb	74,419	16,758
Macedonia	Republic of Macedonia	Skopje	16,940	7,645
Moldova	Republic of Moldova	Chişinău	9,367	2,962
Montenegro	Montenegro	Podgorica	3,443	3,800 (2005- outdated information)
Serbia	Republic of Serbia	Belgrade	64,000	7,265
UNMIK (Kosovo)	United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo	Pristina	4,000	1,800

History

Original agreement

Original CEFTA agreement was signed by Visegrád Group countries, that is by Poland, Hungary and Czech and Slovak republics (at the time parts of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic) on 21 December 1992 in Kraków, Poland. It entered into force since July 1994. Through CEFTA, participating countries hoped to mobilize efforts to integrate Western European institutions and through this, to join European political, economic, security and legal systems, thereby consolidating democracy and free-market economics.

The agreement was amended by the agreements signed on 11 September 1995 in Brno and on 4 July 2003 in Bled.

Slovenia joined CEFTA in 1996, Romania in 1997, Bulgaria in 1999, Croatia in 2003 and Macedonia in 2006.

CEFTA 2006 agreement

All of the parties of the original agreement had now joined the EU and thus left CEFTA. Therefore it was decided to extend CEFTA to cover the rest of the Balkan states, which already had completed a matrix of bilateral free trade agreements in the framework of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. On April 6, 2006, at the South East Europe Prime Ministers Summit in Bucharest, a joint declaration on expansion of CEFTA to Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, UNMIK on behalf of Kosovo, Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro was adopted. Accession of Ukraine has also been discussed. The new enlarged agreement was initialled on November 9, 2006 in Brussels and has been signed on December 19, 2006 at the South East European Prime Ministers Summit in Bucharest. The agreement went into effect on July 26, 2007 for Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova and Montenegro, and on August 22 for Croatia. Bosnia and Herzegovina ratified it on September 6, while Serbia completed the final legal procedures on September 24, 2007. The agreement aims at establishing a free trade zone in the region by 31 December 2010.

Relations with the EU

All former participating countries had previously signed association agreements with the EU, so in fact CEFTA has served as a preparation for full European Union membership. Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia joined the EU on May 1 2004, with Bulgaria and Romania following suit on January 1 2007. Croatia does not yet have a date specified, but is in the process of accession negotiations, and is expected to join EU in 2010 or 2011. Macedonia is also an official candidate country of the EU.

At the EU's recommendation, the future members prepared for membership by establishing free trade areas. A large proportion of CEFTA foreign trade is with EU countries.