Trade bloc encyclopedia topics

Most active regional blocs

It is possible that a country is member of two (or more) different blocs. To avoid overlapping for this classification such countries are only included in the most active of the blocs in question. The "activity" of each block is measured by the following three criteria:

to have greater real practical achievements (not only declarations that are not followed by actual actions by its members)
to have more recent (or regular) activities (meetings, new agreements, other internal procedures)
to have more ambitious plans for future integration and a tighter timescale for it.

Also a country may be classified here as part of the less active regional bloc if the country itself is more active in it; Venezuela, for example, is a member of both the Andean Community and Mercosur. While Mercosur is a more active bloc than the Andean Community, Venezuela itself is much more active in the Andean Community than in Mercosur. Therefore Venezuela is assigned to the Andean Community for the purpose of this classification. (This is only an example. So, note, that Venezuela is planning to completely integrate with Mercosur by 2010).

Priority is given to such regional blocs that have ambitions for integration in more spheres than just economy (i.e., political, defense and other spheres). Sometimes activities are divided between different (but related) blocs with small deviations in membership (e.g., NATO and EU members are almost the same).

Some colors on the map are used multiple times for different blocs. A darker color means full member; a lighter color means associate state, observer state, prospective member, candidate, acceding state or a similar status.

List of regional blocs

Union of South American Nations (Unasur/Unasul)

full members of MERCOSUR: Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela
full members of the CAN: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru
full member, CAN associate member: Chile
LAIA partner: Cuba

Other entities

Dependent territories:

Christmas Island: territory of Australia; unlikely to join any bloc
Cocos (Keeling) Islands: territory of Australia; unlikely to join any bloc
Greenland (overseas country of Denmark): left the EU in 1985; status regarding FTA and customs union is unclear
Hong Kong: SAR of China; WTO and APEC member
Macau: SAR of China; WTO member
Norfolk Island: territory of Australia; unlikely to join any bloc
Svalbard: territory of Norway under the Svalbard treaty; unlikely to join any bloc
U.S. Virgin Islands: organized territory within the United States; unlikely to join any bloc

Unrecognized states:

Abkhazia: problems with status
Nagorno-Karabakh: problems with status
Somaliland: problems with status
South Ossetia: problems with status
Transnistria problems with status
Northern Cyprus: legally part of the EU but refuse to cooperate due to dispute with the south; status regarding FTA and customs union is unclear

Comparison between regional blocs

		Activities
Regional bloc		Free Trade Area	Customs Union	Economic and monetary union		Free Travel		Political pact	Defence pact	Other
Regional bloc		Free Trade Area	Customs Union	Single Market	Currency Union	Visa-free	Border-less	Political pact	Defence pact	Other
AEC	CEMAC	in force	in force	proposed	in force	proposed			in force
	COMESA	in force ¹	proposed for 2008		proposed for 2025
	EAC	in force	in force		proposed for 2009	proposed		proposed for 2010
	ECOWAS	in force ^{1, 3}	in force ¹		in force ¹ and proposed for 2009 ¹ and proposed common	in force ¹	proposed	proposed	in force
	SACU	in force	in force	proposed for 2012	de-facto in force ¹ and proposed common for 2016	proposed
	Common	proposed for 2019	proposed for 2019	proposed for 2023	proposed for 2028			proposed for 2028
ASEAN		in force ⁵		proposed for 2015	proposed	in force		proposed for 2015	proposed for 2020
CARICOM		in force	in force	in force ¹	in force ¹ and proposed common	in force ¹	proposed	proposed
CAIS		in force¹, proposed	proposed	proposed				in force and proposed
CIS	GUAM	in force	proposed			proposed	proposed	proposed	proposed
	EurAsEC	proposed	proposed	proposed			in force	in force ¹	in force ¹
	Common	proposed	proposed	proposed				proposed	in force ¹
EEA	CEFTA	in force	in force					in force	in force
	EFTA	in force	in force ¹	in force ¹		in force ¹	in force (Schengen treaty ¹)	in force¹ (EFTA Court EFTA Surveillance Authority)	in force (NATO ¹)	ESA ¹, Euratom
	EU	in force ²	in force	in force	in force ¹	in force	in force (Schengen ¹ and CTA ¹)	in force	in force (NATO ¹ and CFSP/ESDP ¹)	Euratom
	Common	in force¹	in force¹	in force¹		in force¹	in force (Schengen treaty ¹)		in force (NATO ¹)	Euratom
GAFTA	Agadir	in force
	CCASG/GCC	in force	in force	in force	proposed for 2010
	Common	in force
NAFTA		in force	proposed	proposed	proposed				in force (NATO ¹ Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and NORAD)	Commission for Environmental Cooperation
PARTA		in force¹, proposed	in force¹		proposed			proposed
SAARC		in force ⁶	proposed	proposed	proposed
Unasur/Unasul	MERCOSUR	in force	in force			in force		proposed for 2014
	CAN	in force	in force ¹			in force
	Common	proposed for 2014 ⁴	proposed for not after 2019	proposed for 2019	proposed for 2019	in force		proposed for 2019

¹ not all members participating yet
² involving goods, services, telecommunications, transport (full liberalisation of railways from 2012), energy (full liberalisation from 2007)
³ telecommunications, transport and energy - proposed
⁴ sensitive goods to be covered from 2019
⁵ least developed members to join from 2012
⁶ least developed members to join from 2017