News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Friday, April 25, 2025
European Union member states’ mandate to the European Commission to lead negotiations to establish a multilateral investment court look very different from the text the executive body tabled to them last September. What emerges clearly from the text: member states want full control of the process. Council members today …
The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled today unequivocally that intra-European international investor-state arbitration tribunals are not compatible with EU law. Its summary judgement gives little insight into how it might rule on the compatibility of international investor-state tribunals set up by the European Union with third countries. …
This week was truly packed with activities and events related to trade. The key focus has been Brexit – the transition period and future EU-UK relationship. These topics we now cover separately in dedicated articles and a new series of blogs, the Brexit Notes. The other key focus this week …
This week in EU trade was marked by a first substantive round of trade negotiations with Chile, as well as a meeting of the EU Korea trade committee dominated by EU recriminations against Korean beef import restrictions and one of its labour union laws. Otherwise it’s been report and data …
This week’s trade highlights of the week have been: Latin America, the EU-Vietnam free trade agreement, trade defence and the EU’s multilateral investment court plans. Deal or no deal in Mercosur, that is the question The EU has been negotiating hard with both Mercosur and Mexico this week …
In line with announcements made by president Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday (13 September 2017) in Strasbourg, the Commission released the draft mandate it is requesting from member states to negotiate free trade negotiations with Australia and New Zealand.
After having brought the Transpacific Partnership to bed in early 2016 as lead negotiator for Tokyo, Ambassador Koji Tsuruoka was sent to London to be Japan’s top representative in Britain. At a recent conference of trade lawyers at the prestigious university King’s College, the Japanese envoy spoke his mind on …
The long-awaited ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU on the division of competences between Brussels and the member states on the content of the 2013/2014 free trade agreement with Singapore settles many perpetual power tussles between Brussels and the capitals on a variety of trade-related topics. The …
Ever wondered what the state of Bavaria thinks of the EU’s plans for a multilateral investment court? You can find out by ploughing through the many responses the public consultation led by the European Commission on its plans for a new mechanism to resolve disputes between international investors and states. …
The EU has not been successful in convincing India to relaunch long-stalled bilateral free trade negotiations. Nor has it been able to stop New Delhi from cancelling its bilateral investment treaties with individual EU member states. So far, there seems no way out of the impasse, a letter written by trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström …
