News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Friday, April 25, 2025
US Senator Chris Murphy published a piece in the Financial Times today arguing that the US must continue on its path of retreating from the recently concluded e-commerce agreement at the World Trade Organization, which Washington stopped supporting. This is a good moment to set the record straight on this …
The European Union’s ongoing standard-setting exercise for cloud service cybersecurity has become a high-stakes behind-the scenes geopolitical tussle. It could open up a new front in the world of never-ending EU-US trade frictions if local ownership requirements make their way into the EU digital ecosystem. Inevitable politics Member state civil …
The EU has made meaningful concessions to Japan in its negotiation on a cross-border data flow chapter that is to be annexed to the EU Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, a trade accord that has been in operation since early 2021. The result is a quirky mixture of approaches to the …
The European Commission released ‘digital trade agreement’ text it intends to negotiate with Singapore and with South Korea. It ignores some of these countries’ key priorities for digital trade.
Due to the All Saints holiday, activity has been fairly subdued on the trade beat in Brussels. Such holiday weeks are generally a good opportunity for leaders to travel. European Commission executive vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis has been touring Asia, whereas the international trade committee of the European Parliament was in …
The European Commission is asking member states to “conduct collective risk assessments” in the areas of advanced semiconductor technologies, artificial intelligence, quantum and biotechnologies by the end of 2023. The recommendation, which, as its name indicates is not a piece of hard law, is the first attempt at rolling out …
In this week’s think tank column: carbon border adjustment, digital services trade and ‘strategic autonomy’.
The EU and Japan vowed to finalise ongoing bilateral negotiations on data flows as part of their bilateral trade agreement known as EPA and to facilitate the conclusion of plurilateral negotiations on an agreement on e-commerce in the World Trade Organization. They also adopted ‘digital principles’ that will guide their …
The fourth meeting of the EU-US mega-talk shop called the Trade and Technology Council in Sweden has, in the eyes of most observers, been the most productive of them all so far. Although it hasn’t delivered on some big-ticket items, a slew of small deals and initiatives start revealing its …
After a few weeks of being fairly quiet, think tanks doing things on trade policy have been churning out reports again – long or short – on some big-ticket items: WTO reform, EU data flows and EU Turkey relations.
