News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Saturday, April 26, 2025
The G20, and the future of the WTO will be in focus this week in Brussels. There’s been no week-end for many in Brussels. On Sunday, the EU27 signed off on the package deal for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. The Brexit deal includes: a status-quo transition period during which …
There are four main items to watch this week in EU trade: Brexit, Section 232 at the WTO, INTA, and EU Australia FTA negotiations. Full English Brexit The real Brexit week will not be the last week of March 2019. If all goes according to plan, real Brexit week is …
Four themes will dominate EU trade this week: Brexit, transatlantic relations, WTO issues, and South Africa. Brexit – deal or no deal? It is 9 am Monday morning and EU27 member state ministers are marching as we speak into the Justus Lipsius building on rue de la Loi in Brussels …
After a long All-Saints week-end, this early November week begins in a rush. The focus will be on legislative work in Brussels, which will be overshadowed by developments in the United States. President Trump has announced new sanctions on Iran today, one day before mid-term elections. The Iran move is …
It’s school holiday week in Brussels, so we expect few meetings there in the coming days. But there is still loads happening in the background. EU and Chinese negotiators are meeting two days in an attempt to move forward on their bilateral investment agreement and other common files such as …
WTO focus Expect news this week on World Trade Organization issues. In Geneva, there will be a few special meetings on agriculture and on subsidies and countervailing measures that could indicate how much movement there really is on market access talks in the first and the ‘reform’ agenda driven by Western …
This week’s top focus in EU trade policy will be Asia. Brussels is hosting the Asia Europe Meeting on Thursday and Friday. ASEM has a very broad membership and lose structure and is mostly seen as a meeting, mingling and talking shop. But in the era of Trump the gathering …
New Zealand FTA round 2 This week the EU and New Zealand are holding their second round of free trade agreement negotiations Down Under. The talks were kick-started in July and appear to be on a fast lane as the parties aim to work on text-based negotiations pretty swiftly. Please …
There will be little this week in terms of formal EU FTA negotiation rounds nor intense legislative activity: much more in the coming weeks! Lots of internal wrangling, of course, not least at the informal meeting of trade ministers in Innsbruck, Austria, on Friday. Hot topics of the moment: investment …
This week the EU, alongside Argentina and Mongolia, is hosting the first ministerial meeting of the Alliance for Torture-Free Trade on the sidelines of the UN General Assemly held in New York this week. The initiative, already joined by 60 countries, aims to spread the introduction by UN members of …
