World Trade Organization and regional economic integrations: together in future or not?

Sa？etak There is an extensive theoretical debate on how the formation of a regional economic integration influences the role of the World Trade Organization. World Trade Organization, since its establishment, and its predecessor General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, made enormous effort in expanding and deepening liberalization of trade multilaterally. However, in past few decades, the trend of proliferation of regional economic integrations occurred, which fostered, among others, regional liberalization of trade. The latest round of trade negotiations among the World Trade Organization membership, the Doha Round, was launched in 2001 and remained uncertain. This fact brought up a question of the present and future role of the World Trade Organization. On the other hand, it seems that countries are even more involved in establishing and deepening regional economic integrations as ever. Some believe that this trend will lead eventually to multilaterally free trade as well as stress the role of the World Trade Organization, but others believe that regional economic integration present a stumbling block to the future functioning of this international organization. So, definitely, the proliferation of regional economic integration in the world economy has not led to enthusiasm for multilateral negotiations so far. There are many proposals of reforms of the World Trade Organization and strengthening its role in the world. Also, there is an issue of rising protectionism and the role of the World Trade Organization in recent trade wars, which is rather different than any possible role one regional economic integration could have. The paper analyses whether regional economic integrations are substitutes for or complements to the World Trade Organization membership. The contribution of the paper is twofold. First, the paper gives an overview of regional economic integration trends, as well as of the challenges and perspectives of the functioning of the World Trade Organization. Second, paper offers recommendations of possible improvements in the functioning of the World Trade Organization and complementarity with regional economic integrations