News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Monday, May 5, 2025
The EU is engaged in a highly contortionist political exercise ahead of an expected final decision by the US administration on whether to make temporary exemptions on import duties on steel and aluminium permanent. Among the exertions is a notification to the WTO today.
Member states green-lighted a legislative compromise on a long-standing trade defence instrument reform package initiated in 2013. Last December the Council, European Commission and European Parliament reached a final political compromise after a lengthy trilogue negotiation process. The final text is expected to be adopted by EU legislators …
It’s been mainly a week of background shuffling on Trump tariffs in the EU. Here some other interesting bits of news of interest to our readers. Macron party takes on Malmström on FTAs Trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström was in Paris on Tuesday doing the rounds on trade policy, …
There’s an eerie silence in the EU institutions around the current ‘negotiations’ with the Donald Trump administration over the issue of exempting the EU permanently from planned tariffs on aluminium and steel under Section 232. Even the European Parliament hasn’t been updated with the latest developments. The silence stands …
The British government is eager to get started negotiating the future UK-EU relationship post-Brexit – despite there being no real national consensus in Britain about that relationship yet and no mandate from Parliament. With less than one year to go until Brexit date, the clock is ticking. A government …
With Northern Ireland without a government for months and the pro-independence governing party SNP in Scotland weakened after the last general elections, devolution issues have been politically on the backburner. Yet Brexit date is approaching. The question of how to avoid policy gridlock and fragmentation of the United Kingdom’s …
This week was comparatively quiet. It was Easter, after all. There’s been some movement on the wider global trade war front. Don’t forget to read up on our two articles here and here. The headlines of these articles’ may say ‘China’ or ‘Japan’, but the pieces include a lot …
The EU and Japan are joining the United States in a World Trade Organization dispute against China’s intellectual property practices. On Wednesday, the EU and Japan filed a request to join consultations – a preliminary phase in a legal dispute – initiated by Washington. Despite facing, as political allies, …
With Easter approaching it’s been a comparatively quiet week in Brussels, although behind the scenes there is a lot of work on dealing with the United States’ protectionist “extortion”, as so many call it. There are preparations for the next phase of Brexit negotiations and there’s been work hammering out …
Britain sees the fact that the European Union accepted that Britain may negotiate and sign international agreements with third countries during the planned transition or implementation period after March 2019 as a major political victory. Now London is accelerating the pace of engagement with prospective trading partners. During a …
