EPICENTER

Of the 13 Free Trade Agreements that have been ratified between 2012 and 2019, the Greek Parliament has ratified only four. All during the same parliamentary term from September 2015 to July 2019. This is reported in a new study published by the EPICENTER network. The study is in collaboration with three member organizations, including KEFIM, Fundacion Civismo, and Istituto Bruno Leoni.

Of the 13 agreements that have been ratified between 2012 and 2019, the Italian Parliament has ratified only 4, all during the same parliamentary term from September 2015 to July 2019.The opposition parties in Greece, Italy and Spain tend to oppose the ratification of these agreements for environmental concerns and the protection of domestic companies from international competition. The parties in all three countries surveyed take advantage of populist concerns.

Overall, the EU has an economic freedom score of 7.78 out of 10, which has been stable for the past decade. To put this in perspective, if the EU was a country, it would jointly rank 35th with Peru, and marginally above Jamaica and Bulgaria. Compared to, say, the U.S. which ranks 6th, the EU’s score is feeble at best.