News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
European Union trade ministers approached the issue of who they will support as the next World Trade Organization’s director-general with great prudence. The second ‘FAC Trade’ of the year held online today was an opportunity for EU capitals and the Commission to touch base on the bundle of recent WTO issues …
This week, the trade policy world will be looking a lot to Geneva. WTO Director General vetting process begins Today begins a one-month period during which World Trade Organization members will file nominations for candidates for the position of director-general, which Brazilian diplomat Roberto Azevêdo quit one year before the …
This week has been dominated by news and gossip surrounding the nomintion of a successor for the WTO’s outgoing director general. Today, Nigeria announced it was planning to nominate former finance minister and World Bank official Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala – a high profile nomination to say the least. The nomination period …
The European Union’s messaging ahead of the coming selection process for a new director-general for the World Trade Organization is cause for embarrassment, opines Iana Dreyer. But there is still time to change course.
A few weeks before the Big Lockdown, the European Union announced it was suspending trade preferences enjoyed by Cambodia under Brussels’ flagship duty-free-quota-free trade regime for the world’s poorest countries. Despite the severe economic and supply chain damage wrought by the pandemic, the EU still appears to plan on pressing …
The United States Trade Representative has launched a new Section 301 investigation into the European Union’s plans to introduce a digital services tax as a means to fund its next seven-year budget. A new national security investigation could lead to tariffs on Austrian exports of vanadium. The Commission had tabled …
The European Union is revising for the second time a steel safeguard it applies to 26 product categories since February 2019. Differentiated approach to quota volumes In an approach that raises interesting World Trade Organization compatibility questions, the EU is not announcing an expansion. In fact the EU is reducing …
The trade week in the EU was significant, with new orientiations for policy spelt out as part of the bloc’s post-corona recovery plan. WTO: But the week in not entirely over as members of the WTO General Council meet today and next Tuesday online to confer about the next steps …
Today the international trade committee met for a somewhat longer session than the one held at the end of April at the height of Europe’s lockdown. Here some highlights of what’s been said. Pharma intellectual property The pharmaceutical intellectual property space is one to watch very closely post COVID-19. It …
The European Commission’s post-COVID-19 ‘recovery plan’ released today amidst strong media attention focuses mainly on financial and budget issues. But the governance of trade and global value chains is also a significant dimension of how Brussels sees a way out of the pandemic-induced slump. The European Commission adjusted its 2020 …
