News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
The EU and Singapore will soon formally start preparing the ground to start negotiations towards a digital partnership agreement. These ‘scoping’ talks will be held within the framework of an already existing two-year-old bilateral free trade agreement and form part of a dedicated working group under the deal’s Joint Committee.
You don’t need a ministerial conference to take important decisions at the World Trade Organization. Despite the 12th ministerial conference not happening this week as planned there has been movement in quite a few areas this week.
The relaunched Japan-US-EU trilateral conversation aimed at developing new rules related to so-called ‘non-market’ behaviour in international markets is shaping up to be very different from the pre-pandemic initiative launched during the Trump administration.
The trade committee of the European Parliament adopted its new position on the International Procurement Instrument. The piece of legislation is part of EU efforts to foster ‘reciprocity’ in market access for its firms in international public procurement markets. MEPs consider that there shall be no exceptions to excluding or …
The European Parliament is bracing for a battle over the date of coming into force of the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism and related phase-out of domestic free emissions trading allowances. Other issues MEPs will fight over in the CBAM file are the final use of the money the EU …
Happy Monday morning dear readers! MC12 – the work continues – but how? It’s as if there was a curse hanging over the 12th ministerial conference of the WTO, due to be held this week in Geneva, but postponed at the last minute last Friday. The conference was postponed twice …
Due to travel restrictions enacted by Switzerland and rising international concern over a new COVID-19 variant, the WTO has decided that the ministerial conference planned next week (starting on 30 November 2021) would not be held as planned. Further announcements are yet to be made.
Turkmenistan applies to join the WTO There are only a few more holdouts out there in the world which are not members of the world trade institution. Until recently the Central Asian country Turkmenistan was one of them. After its neighbour Uzbekistan made moves to accelerate its accession process to …
It’s been a week focusing on the 12th ministerial conference of the WTO in Geneva, which will start in a few days. The European Parliament voted on its resolution on the file and the Commission reaching out to media to put out its view on what it wants from the …
Germany, the European Union’s economic powerhouse and most populous country, will soon have a new government. This opens a new political chapter after sixteen years of a centre-right-led coalition headed by the towering figure of Angela Merkel. One can expect a lot of continuity on how Germany approaches EU trade …
