ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on multilateral to bilateral negotiations between the European Union (EU) and third countries on Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). It examines the question of why the Member States started cooperating and empowered the Commission to negotiate on investment disciplines in PTA talks since the late 1990s. The chapter analyses the first PTA negotiations between the EU and third countries to cover noteworthy investment liberalisation commitments and post-establishment provisions - the negotiations on the EU-Mexico PTA and EU-Chile PTA. The evolving international trade agenda and consequent systemic pressures shaped the EU-internal debates on the Commission mandate for the upcoming EU-Mexico PTA. Commission entrepreneurship was decisive in adding investment provisions to the standard agenda of European PTAs. The EU-Chile PTA is the first European PTA to contain comprehensive investment commitments in service and non-service sectors. North American Free Trade Agreement extended the standard agenda of PTAs, inter alia, to investment regulation.
