The EU and Palestine meet regularly in committees to discuss issues and best practices in implementing the agreement. The accumulation of origin means that a product can be processed from a partner country or can be added to a product from another partner country, but can nevertheless be considered a “product of origin” of that second partner country for the purpose of a specific trade agreement. Economic relations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel are formally managed in accordance with the Paris Protocol (1994), which allows the Palestinian Authority to establish trade relations with third countries, unless these agreements depart from Israeli import policy. In 1997, an interim association agreement on trade and cooperation between the EU and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was concluded on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. The agreement provides for duty-free access of Palestinian industrial products to EU markets and phasing out tariffs on EU exports to Palestine in a five-year market. An agreement on further liberalisation of agricultural products, processed agricultural products and fisheries products came into force on 1 January 2012. The pan-Euro-Mediterranean cumulative system was introduced in 2005. It brings together the EU, Palestine and other European and Mediterranean partners to support regional integration through the creation of a regime of common origin. Rules of origin are the technical criteria for determining whether a particular product is eligible for duty-free access or other preferential access under a specific trade agreement.
The pan-Euro-Mediterranean system allows a diagonal accumulation (i.e. cumulative between two or more countries) between the EU, the EFTA countries, Turkey, the Western Balkans, the Faroe Islands and all the countries that signed the Barcelona Declaration of 1995. The system was originally based on a network of free trade agreements with identical original protocols. Euromed is one of the most important initiatives of the European Neighbourhood Policy, where the EU offers its neighbours a privileged relationship based on a mutual commitment to common values (democracy and human rights, the rule of law, good governance, market economy principles and sustainable development).
