News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Two events will happen in Brussels this week that merit close attention: the European Parliament’s international trade committee will discuss a range of headline-worthy issues during its two-day meeting and the Working Party on Trade Questions will discuss investment screening. The churn on Article 50 negotiations between the EU27 and …
The trade week in Brussels was relatively quiet, with many professionals away due to holidays. The trade policy churn nonetheless continued, with COREPER and the Trade Policy Committee meeting on Tuesday instead of their standard Wednesday, when all institutions closed for Europe Day. Member states examined the Australia and …
The World Trade Organization’s General Council meeting on Wednesday highlighted the deepening rift between the US and other members over steel, intellectual property and Appellate Body nominations. There seems to be no way out of the crisis for now.
Member states adopted ‘in principle’ their draft conclusions on what the European Commission terms the “new architecture” of trade agreements. Following the near collapse of CETA, the trade agreement with Canada, and the Court of Justice of the EU’s May 2017 ruling on a free trade accord with Singapore, the …
The World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body will decide within a week whether the EU has complied with a ruling that faulted the bloc for giving illegal subsidies to Airbus. If appeals judges agree with the US that the handouts haven’t been removed, Washington will be able to retaliate on European …
With holidays in Europe this week on Tuesday and Thursday, it’s a given that the news flow will ease a bit. So it’s a particularly good time for a group of European Parliament trade committee members to head to China to get a better handle on the state of EU-China …
China may use subsidies to prop up a range of domestic industries, but oversupply in these sectors has little impact on global trade, a Swiss-based trade watchdog says in a new report on the current steel glut and protectionism.
Import quotas on sensitive agricultural products opened in the EU’s latest FTAs appear to be of little use to both exporters and importers. The last round of EU-Mercosur trade negotiations held last week ended in acrimony. Both EU agriculture market access – aka quotas on beef, sugar and ethanol …
The EU obtained a one-month extension of a reprieve from planned US import tariffs on steel and aluminium. The duties were expected to kick in today. The deadline was set in late March as the US sought to negotiate new deals with its trading partners in return for a reprieve from …
There are just two key items on the EU trade agenda this week – which of course is shortened a bit by the Labour Day holiday tomorrow – but both are of widespread interest: the divisive US tariffs on steel and aluminium and Brexit. The European Parliament is also meeting …
