The proliferation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs)and the slow progress of multilateral trade negotiations (MTNs) have raised interest among scholars and policymakers in the question of how MFN and preferential tariffs are related. The paper addresses this set of issues using a panel of highly disaggregated tariff data (1995-2007) for the European Union (EU), one of the most prolific signatories of PTAs, but also a longtime participant in MFN tariff liberalization. The paper does not attempt to tackle the full set of issues, focusing rather on two specific questions - 1) How does the level of the MFN tariffs set in 1994 in the context of the Uruguay Round, affect the level of preferential tariffs granted in subsequent PTAs? 2) does the degree of reciprocity in the EU's post-UR PTAs affect the level of the EU's preferential tariffs?