EU and Philippines sign free trade deal as Brussels widens Indo-Pacific push

The European Union and the Philippines announced a new free trade agreement on Tuesday, the latest in a series of bilateral deals Brussels has pursued as it looks to diversify its economic ties amid persistent tensions with traditional partners including China, Russia and the United States.

The EU's top trade negotiator, Maroš Šefčovič, said the deal was structured with Philippine Trade Secretary María Cristina Aldeguer-Roque to expand the roughly €30 billion (about $35 billion) in annual trade between the 27-nation bloc and the Southeast Asian country of 115 million people.

"It also delivers stronger, more diversified supply chains at the moment when resilience has become a strategic priority," Šefčovič said.

Trade between the two sides is dominated by electronics. The EU exports aircraft, pork and pharmaceuticals to the Philippines, while importing semiconductors, integrated circuits and industrial machinery made there.

The Philippines becomes the third member of the ASEAN bloc, after Vietnam and Singapore, to conclude a bilateral trade deal with the EU. Negotiations are continuing between the European Commission and Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, while a broader free trade agreement between ASEAN as a whole and the EU remains a longer-term goal.

"There is a bigger picture here too," Šefčovič said. "This agreement sends a clear signal that the EU is reinforcing its engagement with the Indo-Pacific."

The deal reflects the bloc's wider search for growth and stability through new trade links, from Australia to Argentina, as it contends with a turbulent geopolitical landscape that includes conflicts in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine.

The EU has also been grappling with the need to explore alternative energy sources, heightened tensions with the Trump administration, accusations by member-state officials that Russia is carrying out hybrid attacks, and China's large trade imbalance and near-monopoly over critical mineral supplies.

The Philippines agreement broadly tracks the "middle powers" strategy set out earlier this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Last week, Carney was the guest of honor in the European Parliament in Strasbourg at the annual State of the European Union address by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said the EU would create a new kind of "associated membership" for Canada.

"In this new world, we must urgently reimagine our partnerships," von der Leyen said during the speech.