The European Union’s trade relationship with the Pacific States is governed by an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, and unilateral trade preferences granted to Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu on the basis of their development status.

The EU-Pacific EPA is a development-oriented regional free-trade agreement that provides duty-free, quota-free access to the EU market for any Pacific country that joined it or wants to join it.

The factsheet on “Trade between the Pacific Islands Countries and the European Union” provides trade figures between the EU and the Pacific in 2021. According to the UN Comtrade database, the EU market counted for almost 14 percent of all Pacific States exports to the world, ranking as the third most important market destination after China and Japan.