News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
The EU is currently the second largest agriculture and food exporter in the world after the United States. Its export performance has being going from strength to strength following successive reforms of the Common Agriculture Policy and as the emerging world grows richer. Even EU beef and sugar start finding …
EU trade this week was heavy on WTO reform and China (here, here). Brexit was all over the headlines. But there are no actual new developments to report from the heads of government meeting in Austria with Prime Minister Theresa May this week. The Irish border issue remains unresolved, so …
Any mention of the World Trade Organization these days usually includes the words “reform” or “Appellate Body”. While efforts to limit harmful fisheries subsidies aren’t making many big headlines right now, the good news is that they actually seem to be making some progress. That’s not to say a deal …
There’s been a little bit of noise this week on EU trade files in relation to Asia. So here a short update.
The EU and China know they must work together to show leadership in matters of global trade and investment. But realising effective cooperation with trade partners to make the system more robust and to withstand the “disruptive bilateralism originating from Washington” is easier said than done, argues Jacques Pelkmans.
The European Commission released its proposals on reforming the World Trade Organization. The move comes ahead of meetings with US, Japanese and Canadian trade ministers next week in North America. A draft version of the EU’s think piece was already circulated to the press this summer – our piece here. …
After this summer’s successful EU-China summit, Brussels and Beijing are trying to find common ground on trade and investment as well as World Trade Organization reform. Yet despite an exchange of market access offers as part of ongoing investment talks, the two sides are finding it hard to bridge gaps. Worse, …
G20 leaders, including US diplomats, managed to put together a declaration calling for urgent work to begin on reform of the World Trade Organization last Friday in Argentina. The next day US President Donald Trump announced a slew of new blatantly WTO-inconsistent tariffs against China, worth $200 billion. This is …
It’s been a big-ticket week in trade, kicked off by a meeting between the USTR and the EU’s trade commissioner on a possible ‘deal’, and two big reports adopted by the European Parliament on relations with the United States and with China. There was also some action on the Brexit …
Trade ministers from the world’s top 20 economies will gather today in the coastal Argentine town of Mar del Plata to discuss issues such as e-commerce and inclusive global value chains in the agricultural sector. But there can be little doubt that the $500 billion firestorm brewing between the US …
