Bern is bent on avoiding that Switzerland’s steel exporters continue to be negatively affected by the European Union’s steel safeguard introduced in 2018 ahead of the measure’s expected extension.
Author: Iana Dreyer
Comment: EU 2024 elections could herald a trade policy of the ‘returns coordinator’
The far-right shift in European Union mainstream politics is set to reach a new stage in the coming parliament elections. It has already infected the EU’s trade policy as witnessed by interinstitutional negotiations over trade preferences for developing countries. Will the infection spread to other trade policy areas in the …
ASIA TRADE: Taiwan’s worsening trade policy predicament
Western democracies – as in the G7 – more outspokenly express support Taiwan’s right to participate in the international community than in the past amidst Beijing’s growing assertiveness. Yet in the trade and investment policy field concrete action from CPTPP members or the EU is missing.
Brussels in quest for response to US tariff move on China
The European Union finds itself between a rock and a hard place after the United States announced it was significantly raising existing Section 301 tariffs imposed in the Trump era on imports of electric vehicles, lithium batteries, solar cells, semiconductors and medical equipment to sweeping levels on Tuesday. Brussels fears …
Comment: The hollowing out of the EU’s commercial power base
To many, the European Union ends its 2019-2024 legislature triumphant, with a European Commission having deftly navigated the Trump years, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and rocky relationships with China. But let’s not believe in fairy tales: the EU made dangerously deep cuts into the branch of the tree …
Lange: We have a more integrated perspective on trade policy
Bernd Lange served as chair of the European Parliament’s international trade committee for two terms. In an in-depth conversation with Iana Dreyer, he discussed what changes to EU trade policy occurred under his tenure in this pivotal position, where he sees future relationships with the United States and China – …
Romania solar foreign subsidies case: Chinese intra-corporate subsidy channels in focus
In its first formal in-depth investigation into a non-European Union bidder on a public tender under a new foreign subsidies regulation, the European Commission has chosen to focus on what it conceives as a disproportionate amount of government funds received by the companies back home compared to the size of …
WTO at 30: Director-general calls for national security exception fix
Speaking at an event hosted by the think tank Peterson Institute in Washington, the World Trade Organization’s director-general Ngozi Okonjo Iweala called on members of the institution to make efforts to agree on how to handle national security in a time of growing geopolitical frictions. The leader of the WTO …
Foreign subsidies regulation China solar and wind cases: The next steps
The European Commission is suddenly rolling out on a grand scale a new regulation seeking to clamp down on distortions created in the European Union single market by foreign companies investing in Europe. The Foreign Subsidies Regulation started operating in October 2023. Six months on, the action the regulation’s unofficial …
Think Tank: De minimis clampdown, green trade in Geneva, French anti-globalisation votes
This Easter week, think tanks have continued to churn out some work. Below a selection of interesting papers. Topics: the current backlash against de minimis rules at customs, continued hopes for green trade initiatives at or around the World Trade Organization in Geneva, and French voting behaviour in the face …
