News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Sunday, May 4, 2025
The EU is currently the second largest agriculture and food exporter in the world after the United States. Its export performance has being going from strength to strength following successive reforms of the Common Agriculture Policy and as the emerging world grows richer. Even EU beef and sugar start finding …
The UK government has released a third batch of technical ‘notices’ in which it sets out to businesses trading across the Irish Sea or English Channel the type and extent of paperwork it will face should Britain leave the European Union next March without an agreement that includes a transitional …
This week the EU, alongside Argentina and Mongolia, is hosting the first ministerial meeting of the Alliance for Torture-Free Trade on the sidelines of the UN General Assemly held in New York this week. The initiative, already joined by 60 countries, aims to spread the introduction by UN members of …
EU trade this week was heavy on WTO reform and China (here, here). Brexit was all over the headlines. But there are no actual new developments to report from the heads of government meeting in Austria with Prime Minister Theresa May this week. The Irish border issue remains unresolved, so …
There’s been a little bit of noise this week on EU trade files in relation to Asia. So here a short update.
The European Commission released its proposals on reforming the World Trade Organization. The move comes ahead of meetings with US, Japanese and Canadian trade ministers next week in North America. A draft version of the EU’s think piece was already circulated to the press this summer – our piece here. …
After this summer’s successful EU-China summit, Brussels and Beijing are trying to find common ground on trade and investment as well as World Trade Organization reform. Yet despite an exchange of market access offers as part of ongoing investment talks, the two sides are finding it hard to bridge gaps. Worse, …
G20 leaders, including US diplomats, managed to put together a declaration calling for urgent work to begin on reform of the World Trade Organization last Friday in Argentina. The next day US President Donald Trump announced a slew of new blatantly WTO-inconsistent tariffs against China, worth $200 billion. This is …
It’s been a big-ticket week in trade, kicked off by a meeting between the USTR and the EU’s trade commissioner on a possible ‘deal’, and two big reports adopted by the European Parliament on relations with the United States and with China. There was also some action on the Brexit …
The British government will continue to recognise most manufactured goods released by European Union-based conformity assessment bodies and release them for circulation in the UK market after Brexit date. More restrictions will apply to autos and some other products. “This is intended to be for a time-limited period,” the Department …
