News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Sunday, May 4, 2025
The long Asia-focused trade week in Brussels is finishing late on a Friday with a salvo of new announcements. Here a quick roundup. Juncker-Abe meeting During a bilateral meeting with European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe said Tokyo is readying itself to ratify the recently signed EU …
The week is far from over at the time of writing, but it’s still time to send out our regular Friday “Week in Brussels” column, as there is plenty of material already. The EU quarter of Brussels has been in total lockdown for several days as heads of government from …
There were unpleasant noises from US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross and US ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland on Wednesday night following Ross’ meeting with EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström in Brussels. Some media outlets called it the end of the trade ‘truce’ with the United States reached last summer. It …
The European Commission sent the EU-Vietnam free trade and investment agreements to member states and the European Parliament today. So what happens next? And will the trade pact come into force in 2019? It’s clearly not a done deal. In principle, an international agreement is sent to member states only …
The US trade representative formally notified Congress of its intention to launch free trade agreement negotiations with the UK as it leaves the European Union. “An ambitious trade agreement between our two countries could further expand this relationship by removing existing goods and services tariff and non-tariff barriers and by …
This article was updated on 17 October at 14.05 CET/13.05 GMT. The United States trade representative’s office formally notified Congress of its intention to launch trade negotiations with the EU. The letter is a formality that paves the way for talks following a summit between US President Donald Trump and …
The EU recently initiated steps to remove trade preferences reserved for the world’s poorest countries that were granted to Cambodia and Myanmar. One wonders: is this the right policy course? The policy would lead to the potential laying off of thousands of workers in apparel factories. These have been sprouting …
This week’s top focus in EU trade policy will be Asia. Brussels is hosting the Asia Europe Meeting on Thursday and Friday. ASEM has a very broad membership and lose structure and is mostly seen as a meeting, mingling and talking shop. But in the era of Trump the gathering …
The trade agenda was extremely dense this week. The EU is preparing to sign and ratify a slew of trade deals. The European Commission is close to getting a mandate from member states to renegotiate a beef quota with the US as part of a package of possible deals under …
The British government and the European Commission have been holding intense discussions over customs and border arrangements in recent days as crunch time beckons for a UK withdrawal agreement. There’s been plenty of noise around the pivotal file in the deal: border arrangements in Northern Ireland. Now we start to …
