"The Lisbon Treaty would give more authority to the European Commission, the EU's executive, which has been responsible for all the FTA negotiations," an official at the Seoul's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade told The Korea Herald, declining to be identified.

"This would mean the EU could ratify a trade accord without having to go through the complicated process of getting individual approval from all 27 member states," she explained.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus signed the Lisbon Treaty on Tuesday, the last EU country to ratify the treaty aimed at strengthening the bloc's global leadership, enhancing its foreign policy, and raising operational efficiency and coherence. The treaty would also give the bloc its first long-term president.

Sweden, which currently holds the EU presidency, said the treaty would take effect on Jan. 1. The Lisbon Treaty, also known as the Reform Treaty, is an international agreement signed in Lisbon on Dec. 13, 2007 with the objective of overhauling the European Union's operational system.

The Seoul Trade Ministry official said changes could mean full enforcement of the FTA deal under the "provisional application" of an FTA that is possible for the EU before official ratification. Currently, the "provisional application" is just like the actual accord taking effect but with some exceptions, since the pact is enforced without the approval of all 27 members. Trade experts said the EU had such a preliminary enforcement step in place because of the complicated and unpredictable length it could take for trade pacts to be approved by each of the 27 members.

The provisional enforcement only requires ratification by Korea, following the official signing of the deal.

Officials here believe the Korea-EU FTA could take effect as soon as July or August next year. Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon and his EU counterpart Catherine Ashton initialed the agreement last month with the aim of officially signing the deal in the first quarter of next year.

An FTA would give Korea priority access to the world's largest economic zone, while the EU bloc would gain a strong foothold in the rapidly growing Asian region.

Reuters on Nov. 3 reported that "the treaty is aimed at giving the EU a bigger clout on the world scene and making it more flexible. This is intended to match the rise of emerging powers such as China."

The European Commission is also expected to have fewer members from 2014. Each of the EU's 27 nations now appoints a commissioner, but the proportion is to be capped at two thirds of the number of member states. Meanwhile, the number of seats in the European Parliament will be increased to 751 from 736.

Seoul and Brussels began negotiations in May 2007 and concluded the talks in July 2009. The historic FTA would eliminate or phase out tariffs on 99.4 percent of EU goods shipped to Korea and 95.8 percent of Korean goods exported to the European trade bloc, all within a three-year period. Immediate tariff removal would make up 76.7 percent for the European Union and 69.4 percent for Asia's fourth-largest economy.

All tariffs in the industrial products sector would be removed within seven years, with a small remaining portion concerning the sensitive agriculture and fisheries sector for Korea extending up to 15 years.

"For the Korea-EU FTA, the Lisbon Treaty would improve efficiency of the whole ratification process and even accelerate the pace of enforcement," the Seoul trade official said in a telephone interview.

Bilateral trade between the Korea and the EU reached $98.4 billion in 2008. The European bloc is Korea's second-largest trading partner after China and its largest foreign investor. Korea is the European Union's eighth-largest trade partner.

(sohjung@heraldm.com)

By Yoo Soh-jung

2009.11.06