The chapter explains the historic background of preferential trade, both in the area of goods and services. It also explains the key rules in different WTO agreements as well as their monitoring mechanisms.

The chapter goes deeper into the key issue in services liberalization, which is the elimination of discrimination. It explains the challenges relating to the interpretation of services commitments and to understanding what entails discrimination in services trade.

The chapter puts forward a new methodology to study services commitments of preferential trade agreements. The method is suitable for all services agreements but is particularly applicable for the analysis and coding of services commitments by federal states and entities. The method is based on the legal criteria of Art. V GATS, as explained in previous Chapter 2 of Part I of the book.

The last chapter applies Art. V GATS to the four EU's services agreements that were analyzed in accordance with the methodology proposed in Chapter 2 of Part III. It puts forward some suggestions on the agreements' compatibility with Art. V GATS. The suggestions are extended outside the specific context of the EU to all federal entities. The key conclusion is that the criteria of Art. V GATS should be attained by all constituent parts of a federal entity.

The chapter gives a legal analysis of the results of the empirical analysis on four EU's services agreements (EIAs). It focuses on the criteria of Art. V GATS, especially on the conditions of substantial sectoral coverage and elimination of discrimination.