News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
After having brought the Transpacific Partnership to bed in early 2016 as lead negotiator for Tokyo, Ambassador Koji Tsuruoka was sent to London to be Japan’s top representative in Britain. At a recent conference of trade lawyers at the prestigious university King’s College, the Japanese envoy spoke his mind on …
Council members met on Wednesday (31 May 2017) to discuss various trade files. Among the files was the long-awaited mandate to the Commission to launch negotiations to modernise the EU’s more than twenty year old customs union with Turkey. Though there is a general interest in pursuing the modernisation process, the file is …
“Long nurtured relationships as between the United States and Germany never only rely on individual persons or sharp statements”, warned Mark Wansleben, head of the German business organization DIHK after the G7 meeting in Taormina, Italy on 26 & 27 May 2017. The statements made to Handelsblatt, the leading German …
The Dutch Senate put its final seal of approval on the EU Ukraine Association Agreement on Tuesday (30 May 2017). The path is now clear for the political parts of the agreement, which encompasses a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, to come into force in the summer 2017. The …
This week’s pdf news round-up is downloadable here.
G7 nations are meeting in Taormina, Sicily, amidst high political tensions between the US and European countries, in particular Germany. Common ground on trade will be difficult to find. The EU and Japan are trying to advance their own free trade agenda in parallel. The trade tensions with the US are likely to …
US president Donald Trump met various EU leaders on Thursday (25 May 2017). A few brief take-aways from the meetings, with a focus on trade: The first aim was primarily for leaders of EU institutions and Donald Trump to meet and know each other and establish a working …
The British wine industry is not happy about the effects of Brexit on their trade. But longer term, prospects for British consumers could improve. “It’s a bit gloomy”, said Jancis Robinson, a leading British wine writer and Financial Times columnist. The British public will have to “drink less, and less …
Don’t rush into a deal with China, India or the United States. Make the government machinery more efficient. Formulate a proper trade policy strategy. Engage with civil society, devolved administrations, and be more transparent. That’s the key messages to Whitehall conveyed by the Institute for Government in a report discussing how Britain’s …
The ‘Council (Art 50)’ – how the configuration of the remaining twenty-seven member states is called – has formally adopted negotiating directives for Britain’s withdrawal process from the EU. The Council maintains that any future relationship, including trade, will be negotiated once Britain is out of the EU, a …
