News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Friday, May 2, 2025
The European Commission formally tabled a regulation “establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s semiconductor ecosystem”, also known as the EU ‘Chips Act’. The move codifies EU market interventions pioneered at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic whilst also trying to draw some lessons from these episodes, in particular …
The European Commission is seeking immediate semiconductor supply shortage crisis management powers ahead of the imminent announcement of a new industrial policy regulation that seeks to ensure that one fifth of world production happens in the European Union by the end of the decade: the EU Chips Act. The Commission …
The European Commission wants the EU to “take back control” of technical standardisation as it rolls out its new industrial policy and seeks to reduce the influence of large Chinese and United States companies in standard-setting bodies in the EU whilst promoting European standards internationally.
The anti-coercion instrument that the European Commission is proposing for adoption this year coinciding with a crisis with China over its economic bullying of Lithuania is not only a risky institutional power transfer – it might end up being a damp squib.
The EU has moved faster than expected in launching a legal dispute at the World Trade Organization in relation to Chinese restrictions on exports from Lithuania following a political row with the country related to the opening of a representative office for Taiwan in Vilnius last year. The move is …
The European Commission is on a mission to calm down the European Parliament’s urge to complicate its proposed foreign subsidies regulation.
The Council and the European Parliament are confident that the new regulation on an International Procurement Instrument can be wrapped up politically in the coming months, with some people close to the file even hoping there could be a breakthrough in ‘trilogue’ as early as March – although the few …
Plans towards a European Chips Act are maturing. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced a new regulation mirroring similarly named recent United States legislation will be tabled as soon as early February. Brussels’ move in the semiconductor sector heralds a much more politically controlled approach to supply chain …
Given a range of other immediately dangerous security crises looming around the EU, not least with next-door Russia over Ukraine, EU member states have been slow in coming together to discuss in depth the lingering crisis over China’s unofficial embargo on exports from Lithuania. But it’s now happened. What the …
The rapporteur on the coming new EU legislation aimed at tackling distortive foreign subsidies Christophe Hansen presented his draft report on Thursday (13 January) at a hearing that included French trade minister Franck Riester. The rapporteur wants to go fast. He also tabled amendments that seek to minimise international frictions …
