News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
The EU is struggling to find a consistent, coherent and efficient strategy approach to the US administration’s choking off of the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body and to its unilateral tariffs on steel and aluminium. There is a lot of back-and-forth in the background – both in Brussels and …
The EU and Oceania are edging towards an economic rapprochement. Long-awaited free trade agreement talks between the EU and Australia and New Zealand are expected to receive the green light from member states next month. The move comes as the two Oceanian countries seek to diversify their security ties …
The European Commission today initiated the ratification process of the EU’s trade agreements with Japan and Singapore. The Singapore pact, concluded in 2014, was subject to a lengthy judicial process that resulted in a May 2017 ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU identifying where the bloc …
China must give exporters more time to adjust to 11 new environmental protection control standards for imported solid waste as raw materials, the EU says. Governments got just 30 days to comment on the proposed changes, which were to enter into force on 1 March, and exporters had only 14 …
The EU is engaged in a highly contortionist political exercise ahead of an expected final decision by the US administration on whether to make temporary exemptions on import duties on steel and aluminium permanent. Among the exertions is a notification to the WTO today.
This week, the the policy churn in Brussels will mainly be about what to do about Donald Trump’s trade policies. Some progress might be made when the EU and Mexico sit down for another negotiating round aimed at updating their trade deal, and European lawmakers in Strasbourg will vote on a …
It’s been mainly a week of background shuffling on Trump tariffs in the EU. Here some other interesting bits of news of interest to our readers. Macron party takes on Malmström on FTAs Trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström was in Paris on Tuesday doing the rounds on trade policy, …
US President Donald Trump’s decision to study rejoining Trans-Pacific Partnership talks and his suggestion that a trade war with China could be averted if Beijing opened its market to more American goods grabbed the headlines yesterday. But he also had a few things to say – none of them very …
There’s an eerie silence in the EU institutions around the current ‘negotiations’ with the Donald Trump administration over the issue of exempting the EU permanently from planned tariffs on aluminium and steel under Section 232. Even the European Parliament hasn’t been updated with the latest developments. The silence stands …
A decision by the EU to slap safeguards on foreign steel would have severe repercussions in Taiwan, whose exports of the alloy to the US are already subject to 25% duties, says Taiwan’s top trade negotiator. Without an exemption from the US tariffs – something Taiwan has tried and failed to …
