News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Saturday, April 26, 2025
Spain’s Mariano Rajoy is visiting Brazil and Uruguay this week for a trade promotion tour and to talk EU Mercosur free trade. This is a good moment to look into some of the – many – sensitive files in the talks: agriculture and wine and spirits. Latin America is …
Argentina’s foreign minister Susana Malcorra reiterated Argentina’s wish to see the recently re-launched EU-Mercosur free trade negotiations finalised in 2017 during a trip to Brussels on Thursday (20 April 2017). Mauricio Macri’s government wants to send a strong pro-market and pro-trade signal to the world. Buenos Aires will be the location of …
Update Friday 24 March 2017: the EU has asked Brazil to suspend its beef shipments voluntarily, to avoid having to impose a bigger import ban. Brazil has refused. EU meat producers are calling for more controls on imports of Brazilian beef amidst a local meat scandal, and for caution …
Current Brussels talk about turbo-charging bilateral free trade negotiations rings hollow. In 2017, less is more, opines Iana Dreyer. EU member state trade ministers met in sunny Valletta, the capital of the Mediterranean island of Malta, the country that holds the rotating presidency, on Friday (3 March 2017). The …
The deal is sealed. Ecuador can now join the EU free trade agreement concluded with its neighbours Peru and Colombia. MEPs voted in favour of a deal by a solid majority of 544 votes in favour (44 abstentions, 144 no votes). The FTA with Peru and Colombia is being provisionally applied …
The recent death of the iconic leader Fidel Castro has accelerated a process initiated in 2014 by the EU to move away from sanctioning Cuba for its human rights abuses and instead gradually engaging politically and economically with the island nation that has been under a US trade embargo for more than sixty …
The EU was rebuffed by the WTO’s Appellate Body, which upheld a dispute panel ruling stating that the EU’s antidumping duties on imports of biodiesel from Argentina were illegal. The Appellate Body criticised the way the EU calculates and construes input costs for the products under investigation. The matter …
Trade professionals in Brussels are shocked and depressed following the victory of trade-sceptic Donald Trump in the US elections. The flagship but fledgling transatlantic TTIP is seen as frozen, or dead, at least for the time being. But some also see opportunity in this dire situation. The Transpacific Partnership Agreement …
In an exclusive interview with Borderlex, MEP Helmut Scholz explains why he thinks Ecuador’s accession to a free trade deal with Peru and Colombia needs to be supported, and why the EU needs to do more to promote labour, human rights and environment in the multilateral trading system.
