The Commission is stepping up efforts to root out intra-EU international investment arbitration. Yet doing so for Energy Charter Treaty-based cases raises dilemmas for a body that wants to promote the agreement globally but sees support for the text dwindling at home, as seen with Italy’s recent outright pull-out. By Iana Dreyer.
Energy & Environment
In brief: Next week – new round of Environmental Goods Agreement negotiations
Parties to the Environmental Goods Agreement will be holding a new round of negotiations over the liberalisation of tariffs on “green goods” next week (July 27-31) in Geneva. The aim of the seventeen WTO members parties to the talks is to conclude a deal ahead of the UN Paris climate summit in December …
Comment: Russia’s WTO gripes about EU gas market laws
Russia has formally requested that a dispute settlement panel be established at the World Trade Organization to rule on its complaints against EU energy market laws. From a legal and geopoliticial perspective, this is perhaps one of the most interesting cases the WTO will have to deal with in the near future. By …
‘Environmental goods’ trade talks: EU settles for limited ambition for December deadline
EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmström outlined the EU’s current approach to the ‘environmental goods agreement’ under negotiation among seventeen World Trade Organization members. Realism in what can be achieved by an initial December deadline for concluding talks has set in, as Brussels aims for a two-step approach and a “living agreement” that can be updated over …
In brief: Conflict minerals – INTA votes for mandatory reporting for smelters and refiners
WTO Environmental Goods Agreement product list shaping up
Efforts to finalise an agreement for eliminating tariffs on so-called ‘green goods’ among 17 countries at the World Trade Organization (WTO) gathered momentum after the participants zeroed in on an initial list of 600 products that will be subjected to intense – and challenging – negotiations early May. Ravi Kanth …
Blog: A call to reframe the debate over the trade implications of the EU’s fuel quality directive
A new brief by the think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace calls for better data collection and coordination with the World Trade Organization in setting fuel quality standards for climate change mitigation purposes, so as to avert future trade frictions.
EU parliament trade committee fine-tunes commission proposal on novel foods
[sh_light_text ]A long-stalled overhaul of trade rules on so-called novel foods is being scrutinised by the EU parliament, Jennifer Freedman reports.[/sh_light_text]
TTIP good or bad for the climate?
[sh_light_text ] The Energy Post, the debating platform on EU energy policy, has published two opinion articles discussing whether the planned transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) is good or bad for the climate. Take a plunge into the arguments and counter-arguments put forward by two eminent analysts, Ilana Salomon from the Sierra …
Green-goods initiative launched this week to underpin EU climate, energy goals
[sh_light_text ]The EU and 13 other members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) including the US, China and Japan wrapped up the first round of talks on the Environmental Goods Trade (EGA) today in Geneva. The EU hopes the deal will help it meet its climate and energy security targets. But major …
