The UK is a member of the European Union and has not been able to negotiate its own trade agreements for several decades. However, after the UK`s formal withdrawal from the European Union, it may again be able to negotiate its own trade agreements. While the UK was in the EU, it actively lobbied the EU to pursue trade agreements with other Commonwealth countries. [9] This has in part led the EU to enter into negotiations for free trade agreements with a number of Commonwealth countries. Currently, Canada and India are in the midst of free trade agreement negotiations with the European Union. [10] In addition, a number of Commonwealth countries, including South Africa, Cameroon, Zambia and the 12 Commonwealth members of the Caribbean Community, have already concluded free trade agreements with the EU. [11] [12] The EU, through the Lomé and Cotonou Conventions, has extended some preferential access to developing Commonwealth countries. [13] The Commonwealth`s responsibility is to meet the obligations under international agreements and Commonwealth legislation with respect to waters outside of those waters under state control under the constitutional regime at sea, unless there are formal management agreements between the Commonwealth and the State (for example. B specific fisheries) or where the waters are managed directly by the Commonwealth (for example. B of the Great Marine Barrier Reef). The Commonwealth is responsible for controlling dumping in Australian waters.

Since declaring its intention to withdraw from the European Union, the UK has begun rapidly negotiating succession agreements with dozens of countries and blocs, including many members of the Commonwealth. Agreements include Cariforum Fiji and Papua New Guinea (March 2019), The Customs Union of Southern Africa and Mozambique (October 2019) and Kenya (November 2020). Discussions with Canada are expected to be completed by the end of 2020. Several other nations that do not have free trade with the EU are also in talks with the UK, including Australia and New Zealand. However, from 2020[update], none of these negotiations have focused on major Commonwealth proposals, free trade or other broader proposals. Detailed commitments of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) can be recorded in intergovernmental agreements or declarations of cooperation. Trade with the Commonwealth as such has not been a remarkable political position in Canada since the failure of the diefenbaker proposal of the 1950s. Instead, on the one hand, Canada pursued deep economic integration with the United States (including a 1988 free trade agreement) and, on the other hand, a general diversification of trade with the “third option” policy of 1970 (an aborted attempt to diversify Canada`s trade through negotiations with Japan and the European Economic Community). This has been reinforced by a new wave of free trade agreements after NAFTA in 1994, including five Latin American countries, the European Free Trade Association and, more recently, the European Union, as well as the failed US Free Trade Area in the early 2000s and the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations since 2012. 3. Bilateral agreements provide for the accreditation of state processes by the Commonwealth and, in appropriate cases, government decisions (e.g. B agreed management plans).

Bilateral agreements also provide for state accreditation of Commonwealth processes and, where appropriate, Commonwealth decisions. Intergovernmental agreements facilitating payments to states and national agreements under the Intergovernmental Agreement on Federal Financial Relations are available on the federal financial relations council`s website.