News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Monday, May 5, 2025
Brussels has eagerly been waiting for the new European Commission’s ‘Green Deal, a flagship initiative announced by its new president Ursula von der Leyen. Coordinated by Vice President Frans Timmermans, the new compact of measures aims to bring together various strands of EU policy to fulfil the EU’s goal to …
There was relief in the World Trade Organization as members agreed to extend for six months the expiring two-year 1998 moratorium on duties on electronic transmission across borders. That’s how low expectations have come to be as the organisation sinks into deep crisis. A feature of that crisis includes being …
This week will be a critical week for the future of the World Trade Organization, the European Union and the United Kingdom (in all this). WTO crisis in focus WTO Ambassadors are meeting for the General Council in Geneva. The gathering comes at a moment of deep crisis in the …
It’s been an eventful week on trade – with a deepening WTO crisis, some movement on agriculture, continued uncertainty over the EU Vietnam FTA ratification…. New low in WTO and transatlantic trade relations This week has provided fodder for around-the-clock quotation-chasing media as developments shifted by the day, if not …
The Word Trade Organization was not killed off . But it was put on life support for another year as members in Geneva caved to the United States after it threatened to withhold approval of the next two-year budget for the organisation. Bloomberg reported this afternoon that WTO members accepted …
World Trade Organization member countries have pledged to at least make an effort to agree new disciplines on domestic agricultural subsidies at the Organization’s ministerial meeting in Kazakhstan next June. Negotiators will begin work in January 2020 on a possible new text for agreement at the Nur-Sultan ministerial, bolstered by …
The arrest of a Saigon-based trade agreement critic and independent journalist complicates the European Parliament’s final preparations to ratify a landmark trade agrement and an accompanying investment protection accord with Vietnam.
The Finnish presidency of the European Council has tried to bring forward discussions among member states on how to bring forward a piece of legislation on public procurement aimed at creating ‘leverage’ vis-à-vis third countries with procurement markets that exclude European firms. The talks have started again, but the Council …
United States aims to ‘reset’ transatlantic trade relations ring hollow. The US is moving ahead with further import duties on EU products. It is not interested in an OECD agreement on digital taxation. And it has definitely pulled the plug on the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body. The EU for …
The European Union was largely rebuffed in a second compliance report it requested regarding subsidies to Airbus today at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. US tariffs introduced against the EU in retaliation for these subsidies are already in place. These tariffs were authorised in October by a WTO arbitrator …
