News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Saturday, May 3, 2025
MEPs are sharpening up the European Parliament’s position ahead of negotiations with the Council and the European Commission aimed at finalising a long-awaited regulation that would potentially put up barriers for bidders on public procurement markets in Europe.
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The European Union’s trade policy agenda will be overshadowed by a hiatus in the coming months as the Franco-German duo faces domestic elections. Nonetheless, pathbreaking legislation ranging from procurement to supply chains could still make headway.
If anything, this week in trade in Brussels was about preparing the ground for what comes next in the autumn 2021.
This last week of July 2021 will see a frenzy of activity at the World Trade Organization as Brussels quiets down and London too – although one cannot exclude new developments in the Northern Ireland file as the EU prepares to bring legal action against the the United Kingdom to …
The EU and New Zealand released this week their versions of the last round of negotiations towards their goal of concluding a free trade agreement The main highlight of the round was the EU’s second market access offer to New Zealand. Whereas the EU is optimistic an agreement will soon …
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.
