A strategy based solely on closer ties with these countries, therefore, would tend to condition Malta’s development to proceed at a slower pace than its own potential would justify. Furthermore, although efforts are being made to create a Euro-Mediterranean free trade area (FTA) by 2010, this date appears rather optimistic. This was confirmed by the Spanish Presidency last March, which noted that a critical mass of implemented FTAs between the partners themselves has yet to be  5  Singapore has recently also initialled a bilateral agreement with Japan. 6  Indeed, these are the precise reasons put forward by the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Republic of Tanzania during the 47th session of UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Board where he noted that: “We do not believe that we can enter into the international arena under today’s rules if we do not go through these steps at regional level”. 7  Of these arrangements only 141 have been notified to the WTO. “Regional Trade Integration Under Transformation”, WTO Secretariat, 2002, preliminary draft prepared for the Seminar on Regionalism and the WTO on 26 April 2002  8  These include members of AFTA, the Andean Community, CARICOM, COMESA, ECOWAS, the EU, MERCOSUR, NAFTA, SADC, CACM, LAIA, ECO, GCC and the Bangkok Agreement. This does not include countries which have stand-alone FTAs/Association Agreements with another country or regional grouping. 9  The ANDEAN Pact, for example, also deals with biodiversity, electronic commerce and the protection of indigenous knowledge.
If this agreement is to be upgraded, however, Malta would have to make commitments over and above those it has today. Indeed, many of the countries with whom the EU has a comparable agreement have managed to obtain a better deal than Malta not only because they are much larger in terms of market size, but also because they have entered into additional commitments. EEA countries, for example, do indeed participate in EU programmes, but they have also offered substantial rebates on loan-related interest payments and committed nearly ECU 500 million in direct grants for projects in specific EU regions. In other words, EEA countries contributed to the EU’s financial resources, and specifically to the EU’s regional policy, without being members of the EU. In addition, it is well known that membership of the EEA implies taking on a large part of the EU acquis, whether past, present or future, without having any say in the decision-making process. Nor is the obligation to come into line with the acquis unique to the EEA. As is the case with Switzerland, which is an EFTA but not an EEA country, the EU’s trading partners are increasingly being required to approximate their national laws with those of the EU as a precondition for access to 13 its market .