News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
The post Brexit settlement of the matter of Gibraltar, the tiny territory at the tip of the Iberian peninsula whose status was always a sore point between the United Kingdom and Spain, was postponed by negotiators in 2020 focused on getting the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between Brussels and London …
Here a new edition of our WTO Corner blog. It’s been a while…!
The fact that the EU had concluded its least ambitious agreement on public procurement in a free trade agreement in many years with the four member countries of the Mercosur was well known. The recent release of the fine print of the mutual market access offers in the trade pillar …
There is not only CBAM, the United States or Mercosur in EU trade policy. There is also Morocco. Trade relations with the EU’s southern neighbour were the focus of a dedicated session in the international trade committee this week. The MEPs’ exchange of views with Commission official comes amidst heavy …
Canada is preparing to introduce a carbon border adjustment measure whose contours are not yet known. Canada and the European Union vowed at a bilateral summit mid-June to “exchange on respective approaches to carbon pricing and WTO-compatible border carbon adjustments”. A think tank is now making concrete proposals on how …
The European Commission is planning to introduce legislation that would ban imports containing inputs produced with forced labour in situations where company due diligence alone cannot do the job.
Slovenia took over the reins of the Council less than two weeks ago and will have to steer the European Union’s trade policy through choppy waters in the coming six months. Speaking at the European Parliament on Tuesday (13 July) Zdravko Počivalšek, Slovenia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic …
The European Commission is seeking to convince sceptics on both sides of the debate on the future of the Energy Charter Treaty that negotiations to ‘modernise’ the body of rules that underpin it are making progress. And it seems that the negotiation process launched in 2020 is indeed gradually moving …
Brussels in rushing to wrap up or move specific trade file to the next level before the summer break which begins late July. EU ASEAN to meet in Q3 to discuss region to region FTA ‘parameters’ Well, nothing came out of it apart from good intentions. The EU and ASEAN …
The European Commission’s plans to press ahead with a ‘digital levy’ despite agreement at international level on taxation of companies trading across borders is not only annoying the United States, but also the European Union’s very own corporate sector, which fears trade retaliation and loss of competitiveness.
