News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Friday, April 25, 2025
The panel report in the dispute between the EU and South Korea released today will be seen as a milestone in the European Union’s fundamental trade-related labour rights enforcement strategy, even if does not satisfy many political demands of the left-of-centre in the European Parliament nor of European labour unions.
EU UK TCA: European Parliament wants more scrutiny powers and more time European Parliament committees scrutinised the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement this week. The series of meetings culminated in a joint meeting of the foreign affairs and international trade committee on Thursday. This kick-starts a formalised consent procedure involving …
The European Union brought its first dispute under a bilateral free trade agreement against Korea. The EU alleges that Korea’s failure to ratify several International Labour Organisation core conventions, in particular Convention 87 on freedom of association of workers, is a breach of its terms under their 2010 trade pact. …
The trade week in the EU was significant, with new orientiations for policy spelt out as part of the bloc’s post-corona recovery plan. WTO: But the week in not entirely over as members of the WTO General Council meet today and next Tuesday online to confer about the next steps …
It’s been a pretty packed week. Here other low-key but important developments in EU trade policy. EU Mexico FTA stirrings The EU and Mexico had concluded negotiations towards the modernisation of a twenty year old free trade agreement in April 2018. But that agreement ‘in principle’ left the parties with …
E-commerce negotiators gear up for intense first half of 2020 After a stock-taking meeting in Geneva early this week, negotiators involved in the plurilateral negotiations on e-commerce decided there would be a ministerial meeting on the talks in January 2020 at the annual global elite meeting in Davos. The Davos …
This week, EU leaders were out in New York for a UN General Assembly meeting dominated by ‘Greta’, i.e. the climate change issue. The gathering in the Great Apple was also a good opportunity to meet other leaders from across the world. Cecilia Malmströmmet among others with counterparts from Brazil …
The EU not only managed to get South Korea to launch the ratification process of International Labour Organisation conventions it committed to abide by in the 2011 EU Korea free trade agreement, Seoul also agreed to update and accept new technical and EU automotive standards as part of ongoing bilateral …
China and EU-US trade relations dominated the news this week. Here’s a selection of what else happened. EU to face new Russian WTO complaint over steel anti-dumping duties This week in Geneva, Russia requested a panel in a dispute filed in February 2017 against the EU’s anti-dumping duties on cold-rolled …
It’s been an eventful week, with the EU coming up with new initiatives vis-a-vis China, the European Parliament voting down the EU’s United States trade strategy, a beef deal with Washington, and negotiations going on with Indonesia and Mercosur to try and achieve a free trade agreement with them. In …
