News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Friday, April 25, 2025
The European Commission published this afternoon the definitive regulation enacting much-awaited electric vehicle countervailing duties after an investigation launched in October last year into subsidisation of the sector by the Chinese authorities. The duties will come into force as soon as tomorrow (30 October).
European Commission director for trade defence Martin Lukas said his institution was ready to clinch a price deal with Chinese companies on their exports of electric cars even after definitive EU duties are enacted.
The European Commission has announced the provisional levels of countervailing duties it will be levying on electric vehicles produced in China and signalled that it is ready to negotiate a “mutually agreed solution” with Beijing. The case is a snapshot in the subsidy and industrial battle the EU is waging …
The European Union finds itself between a rock and a hard place after the United States announced it was significantly raising existing Section 301 tariffs imposed in the Trump era on imports of electric vehicles, lithium batteries, solar cells, semiconductors and medical equipment to sweeping levels on Tuesday. Brussels fears …
Bernd Lange served as chair of the European Parliament’s international trade committee for two terms. In an in-depth conversation with Iana Dreyer, he discussed what changes to EU trade policy occurred under his tenure in this pivotal position, where he sees future relationships with the United States and China – …
The European Commission is suddenly rolling out on a grand scale a new regulation seeking to clamp down on distortions created in the European Union single market by foreign companies investing in Europe. The Foreign Subsidies Regulation started operating in October 2023. Six months on, the action the regulation’s unofficial …
European Council president Charles Michel and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen have put the bilateral trade relationship with China front and centre of their conversations with China’s president Xi Jinping at a summit in Beijing today. The conversations also covered questions of war and peace including the war …
Here is a roundup of what trade think tanks have been up to this week.
The European Commission initiated four new trade defence investigations only this week, two of them targeting Chinese products. This brings the total number of new anti-dumping cases initiated this year to seven, two more than Brussels launched in 2022.
The latest iteration of the annual report of the China Chamber of Commerce to the European Union has rarely been so critical of what it sees as the EU’s inward looking drive and its growing focus on security in its relationships with China. It takes aim specifically at a policy …
