News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Thursday, May 1, 2025
Formal EU proposals to reform the World Trade Organization don’t go far enough in pulling in the reins of Appellate Body judges, the US ambassador to the WTO said this week. The appellate function will continue for now on the basis of a rotation system.
The ratification of the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement by the European Parliament on Wednesday boosted morale at a time when relationships with the United States remain ‘complicated’ and the WTO is sinking into crisis as the US rejected the EU’s WTO reform proposals during meetings in Geneva this week. But …
The measures at stake are at the heart of the current conversation in the World Trade Organization on how to discipline subsidies to coddled industrial sectors and on the treatment of developing countries in the organisation.
The ratification by a large majority of MEPs of the European Union-Japan Economic Partnership agreement this week in Strasbourg is a boost to the morale of decision-makers battered by the ongoing transatlantic trade and gas ‘war’ – in which Germany is quietly starting to do some of the heavy lifting. …
The European Parliament ratified the EU Japan Economic Partnership. Outcome: 474 votes in favour, 152 votes against, 40 abstensions.
It looks as if MEPs are confident they can get the required majority to pass the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, the landmark trade deal concluded late last year between the EU and Japan, after all. The European Parliament today confirmed that a vote scheduled for Wednesday would go ahead — …
Happy Monday dear readers. This is going to be a week of reckoning for some pressing European trade policy files. Will we get a Japan deal? Will the House of Commons accept the UK’s Withdrawal Agreement with the EU? What happens next in the WTO saga? (And, what about ‘la …
This week’s top stories: Britain and services in the WTO, a big bazooka in the WTO’s dispute settlement body, a Japan deal at risk of falling victim to German and other social-democratic political decline, member states wrangling over rice imports from Myanmar and Cambodia. But also these stories here: Top …
China has joined a host of other World Trade Organization members in calling for WTO reforms and is actively working on its own proposal on how to tackle problems at the Geneva-based trade body. But with many Chinese policies in the crosshairs of a joint reform proposal by the EU, …
The European Parliament’s leaders sat down today to confirm that the EU-Japan Strategic Partnership Agreement and EU-Japan Economic Partnership were going to be put to MEPs for ratification next Wednesday in Strasbourg as planned. But persistent splits in the Socialists and Democrats group still cast a shadow over ratification.
