Management & Marketing (2008) Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 37-48. THE IMPACT OF THE FUTURE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND SOUTH KOREA ON THE EUROPEAN AND ROMANIAN ECONOMIES – A MARKETING RESEARCH – Iacob CĂTOIU, Tudor EDU Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest Abstract. The signing of a Free Trade Agreement between South Korea and the European Union is one of the main goals of the General Affairs and External Relations Council of the EU. The FTA between the EU and South Korea will have a significant impact on the European economy with positive and negative consequences. The goal of this study is to determine the opportunities and possible threats for the European and Romanian economies. The most important effects of this Free Trade Agreement could be summarized in the increase of productivity and efficiency and spreading of innovation within a great number of industries. Keywords: Free Trade Agreement, EU, South Korea. Introduction The signing of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between South Korea and the European Union is one of the main goals of the General Affairs and External Relations Council of the EU. This Council plans to negotiate free trade agreements with South Korea, India, ASEAN, the Andean Community and the Central American Common Market. The European Union is concerned with the creation of a new multilateral framework of free trade compatible with the provisions established within the World Trade Organization by approaching the uncovered areas such as: investment, trade in certain services and removal of non-tariff barriers. The FTA between the European Union and South Korea will have a significant impact on the European economy with positive and negative consequences. This is why the identification of the opportunities and threats brought about could be considered a must for the European companies and, especially, for the Romanian ones. In this regard we consider that a marketing research of the secondary data pertaining to the ongoing negotiations and reactions of the parties involved could clarify several aspects of the unknown implications of this agreement. The goal of this study is to determine the opportunities and possible threats of the future Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and South Korea for the European and Romanian economies. The main objectives of this research could be structured as follows: 1. Evaluation of the status of the bilateral relations prior to the commencement of the negotiations for the Free Trade Agreement; 2. Identification of the areas to be approached in the negotiations for the Free Trade Agreement;