News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Monday, May 5, 2025
This week was truly packed with activities and events related to trade. The key focus has been Brexit – the transition period and future EU-UK relationship. These topics we now cover separately in dedicated articles and a new series of blogs, the Brexit Notes. The other key focus this week …
It’s crisis time in Brexit Land. This morning, the UK government postponed the examination of the customs bill it needs to pass to make tax and border management Brexit-ready by March 2019. A group of pro Remain Tory MPs led by Anna Soubry and leading figures in the Labour …
The European Commission is mulling a bilateral quota system for its future transport and transit rights relationship with Britain after Brexit. The executive body has drawn up the consequences of the UK’s departure from the EU for road, rail and maritime transport in a few slides on the topic …
The EU is in the final stages of free trade negotiations with the South American bloc Mercosur. It is readying for the adoption of a new trade agreement with Japan and Vietnam. Anti trade agreement campaign groups have recently stepped up their activities to fight these agreements. A joint …
The British government released its response to the European Union’s proposal on a transition period post Brexit. The text was part of the discussions held in Brussels on Tuesday. As widely reported in the press, the UK government is seeking a longer status-quo transition period by which all stays …
Welcome to the first edition of Brexit Notes. A blog I hope to keep up at least once a week on all things trade and Brexit. A cross-Channel perspective of sorts as a frequent commuter between London and Brussels. This will not be the place for big breaking Brexit …
Mexican and EU negotiators are not closing in on a deal to modernise their almost two-decade-old Global Agreement. Trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström and agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan, who had held off a final decision to travel to Mexico City until today to meet the negotiators and broker sensitive compromises, …
Some people are getting impatient about the slow pace of ratification of the EU-Vietnam free trade agreement that was inked in 2015. Now, Vietnam and the European Commission are pointing fingers at each other over the delay. The ‘legal scrubbing’ of the trade deal has dragged on for more …
With many people out of town skiing it’s been comparatively quiet in Brussels town itself. A lot happened actually outside of Brussels. Trade pros even got time to write #TradeValentines poems. EU and US join Japan in plans to take China to WTO over tech protectionism A new …
VoteWatchEU released an analysis of the political party landscape in Italy as the Southern European country braces for a long-awaited general election in early March. That landscape is fragmented, with populist parties on the right and left eroding the voter base of Matteo Renzi’s centre-left PD and Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right …
