News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Saturday, April 26, 2025
Welcome back to our Monday morning Week Ahead columns! In these gloomy and rainy early days of November in Brussels we are looking to a packed agenda that could distract us from the bad weather. Shanghai WTO mini ministerial Commission and member state officials will be in Shanghai on Tuesday …
November deadlines missed Europeans and Britons were spared Brexit for Halloween this Friday as the United Kingdom seeks a way out of its political impasse through elections later this year. There are also signs that the United States will seek a way to avoid slapping tariffs on EU autos in …
Airbus, transatlantic This week in European Union trade politics will be dominated yet again by ‘Airbus tariffs’ and the general state of transatlantic trade relations. Today, the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization is set to authorise retaliation by the United States after it won its case against …
This is set to be an intense week in EU trade policy. The Airbus tariff war, DSB meeting The World Trade Organization’s Dispute Settlement Body is meeting today in Geneva. On the agenda: the Airbus case and authorisation by the WTO for the United States to imposed duties on EU …
Perhaps this is the week when the European Parliament will really get down to work on international trade policy, and it’s the week after the summer break where trade disputes and trade negotiations really start trailing off. INTA committee The international trade committee is meeting today and tomorrow. Today’s session …
Good morning. Brussels continues to have this ‘interregnum’ feel about it as it prepares for leadership change at the top. Legislative work is slow. A newly elected European Parliament is only gradually getting organised to work on trade. The primary focus is on politics: the parliament is preparing hearings with …
The wheels of the Brussels machinery are gradually starting to churn again. So here a few useful items to watch out for this week. On Tuesday, European Commission-elect Ursula von der Leyen will announce who she wants to serve on which vacant new commissioner post. Mainstream expectations continue to be …
The incoming European Commission plans to put the fight against climate change front and centre in its next five-year tenure. But signs are the EU’s executive arm will be squeezed in between capitals – many of which might want to go slow on controversial files such as a carbon border …
G-summits, be they in their 7, 8 or 20 format, have always rung hollow. But the meeting of heads of state or government of the world’s richest countries held over the weekend in Biarritz, southern France, surpasses many in the scale of its emptiness.
The agendas of most institutions relevant to our readers are empty or almost empty, be they related to ‘comitology’ meetings at the Council in Brussels, the European and national parliaments, the WTO, or the European Commission.
