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47 Hitotsubashi J.L. & Pol. 1 (2019)

handle is hein.journals/hbijllw47 and id is 1 raw text is: Hitotsubashi Journal of Law and Politics 47 (2019), pp.1-15. C Hitotsubashi University THE ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT AND THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND JAPAN FROM A LEGAL PERSPECTIVE YUMJKO NAKANISHI* Content I. Introduction II. Competence III. Content and the EU's Values IV. Implementation of the EPA and the SPA V. Concluding Remarks I. Introduction The European Union (EU) and Japan signed the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) and the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) on 17 July 2018. The EPA is composed of 23 chapters, covering investment liberalisation (Chapter 8), competition policy (Chapter 11), and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (Chapter 20), which are not subjects covered by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The chapter on SMEs in the EPA is based on the impact assessments by the Commission.1 Chapter 14 covers the protection of intellectual property rules including geographical indications (GI). During the negotiations with the EU, Japan enforced new legislation on it.2 The EPA has about 560 pages not including annexes, and the SPA is composed of 50 articles, in about 50 pages. These agreements are economically and legally important. The agreements date back to 28 May 2011, about two months after the Great East Earthquake. On that day, the 20th EU-Japan Summit was held in Brussel. The Joint Press Statement indicated that Summit leaders agreed to start the process for parallel negotiations for a deep and comprehensive Free Trade Agreement/Economic Partnership Agreement and a binding agreement, covering political, global and other sectoral cooperation in a comprehensive manner.3 Parallel negotiations were requested by the EU, as part of its external action based on Article 21 (1) TEU after the Treaty of Lisbon. After a joint press statement, the European Commission started a scoping process to check * Professor of EU Law, Graduate School of Law, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan. E-Mail: yumiko.nakanishi@r.hit-u.ac.jp ' COM (2017) 491, p.7. 2 As for Japanese GI protection system, see http://www.maff.go.jp/e/policies/intel/giact/index.html (last accessed on 24 December 2018). s 20th EU-Japan Summit, Brussels, 28 May 2011, Joint Press Statement, see, https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/europe/ eu/jointl105.html (last accessed on 17 December 2018).