In an interview with Borderlex, the European Parliament’s international trade committee chief Bernd Lange explains what he hopes to achieve before the European elections next year.
EU Climate, Environment, Labour, Human Rights
EU duties on Indonesian biodiesel break rules, WTO says
European tariffs on Indonesian biodiesel are illegal, the World Trade Organization said today in a ruling that contains the same basic findings as in a similar WTO complaint lodged by Argentina. But the panel went even further, faulting the EU’s profit calculations and finding serious defects with the bloc’s export-price …
FTAs: How the EU is approaching the fight against corruption
Among trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström’s pledges in her 2015 ‘Trade for All’ strategy there is stepping up the fight against corruption. This promise is gradually being translated into action with new anti-corruption provisions foreseen in the coming updated EU Mexico Global Agreement and recently launched EU Chile Association Agreement upgrade. …
FTAs: EU Commission seeks ways around labour and environment sanctions
The centre-left S&D group, led by the chairman of the international trade committee, Bernd Lange, is in a renewed push for the EU to make the labour and environment provisions in its free trade agreements more enforceable, namely through potential commercial sanctions. The European Commission continues to resist, but is …
EU Japan EPA text analysis – Easy on the ambition?
The European Commission published the bulk of the text of the EU Japan Economic Partnership Agreement in early December last year. Below some highlights of the pact and some comments – result of your truly’s Christmas break reading. The deal favours significantly EU exporters and is relatively unambitious in services.
A week in Brussels: TDI, Azerbaijan, French torture-goods breach
It’s been a packed week for trade in Brussels as everyone prepares to break for Christmas. The trade talks with Mexico did not conclude successfully, and the European Commission is still wrangling over data flows in free trade agreements. The commission came up with a tough transition offer for …
‘Future’ environmental compliance costs creep into EU trade-defence calculations
The EU is set to introduce ‘future’ costs of compliance with environmental and labour treaties in its calculation of injury margins in trade-defence cases. The bloc is now making systematic its consideration of a trading partner’s compliance with International Labour Organization and ‘multilateral environmental’ conventions, including the 2015 Paris Agreement …
Dual-use regulation overhaul to drag on in European Parliament
The European Parliament will once again examine in plenary a compromise text on ‘dual-use’ export control reached in the international trade committee on Thursday, before it is sent back to the European Commission and member states. On 23 October, MEPs mainly from the centre-right ultimately refused to send the final …
A week in Brussels
Welcome to a new weekly column ‘A week in Brussels’ with the highlights of the trade week in Brussels. I hope you enjoy it! The trade week in Brussels ends with an understated Eastern Partnership summit. It brings together of a group of disparate countries traumatised by the Ukraine crisis …
EU-Mercosur: Negotiators set sights on Buenos Aires WTO ministerial
EU and Mercosur negotiators agreed to prolong for another seven days a marathon two-week round of negotiations scheduled to start on 27 November. This means there will be a three-week stretch to get close to a deal before the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires, on the sidelines …
