• Client:  EC – DG TRADE
  • Implementation period: January, 2021 - July, 2022 (Ongoing)
  • Geographic coverage: European Union

What are the main environmental impacts of the Association Agreement between the EU and its Member States and Central America?

The evaluation study will support the European Commission – DG Trade in developing an ex-post evaluation of the implementation of the Association Agreement Trade Pillar (EU-CA TP) between the EU and its Member states and Central America (EU, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama). The assessment will consider the economic and sustainability (social, human rights, environment) impacts of the agreement. Our analysis will inform DG Trade and other stakeholders on the most significant environmental impacts, including areas such as climate change, biodiversity and ecosystems, and other key environmental parameters. The overall environmental analysis will contribute to the understanding of the effect of the EU-CA TP on the performance and the legislative framework (and effective implementation) in each of the prioritised environmental impact areas.

Trinomics has teamed up with BKP Economic Advisors GmbH, and Global Sustainability Futures Ltd, Trade Impact B.V. and other experts for this study. Our contribution will be focused on the assessment of the environmental impacts.

You can find more information about this EU-CA TP here. For questions concerning our work, please contact Kym Whiteoak or Lisa Korteweg.

This investigation provided the following preliminary results:

  • Provide input to the evaluation questions related to the effectiveness and coherence of the EU-CA TP with EU other policies and the EU’s commitment to the SDGs;
  • Contribute to the identification of sectors whose environmental dimensions have been (positively, neutrally or negatively) affected as a result of the implementation of the EU-CA TP;
  • Establish baselines to understand the EU’s and Partner Countries’ status quo regarding their governance and environmental performance of prioritised impact areas;
  • Perform a quantitative assessment of the impacts of the EU-CA TP on GHG emissions and, depending on data an resources available, air pollution, trade of environmental goods & services, and land use change;
  • Perform a qualitative assessment of the impacts of the EU-CA TP focussing on those impact areas which are not assessed quantitatively based on desk research to identify trends, developments and cause-effect relations;
  • Contribute to the identification and conduct of an in-depth analysis of key case studies that reflect the environmental impacts assessed.