News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Saturday, April 26, 2025
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. …
With things suspiciously quiet on both the Mercosur and Mexico trade talk fronts, the biggest news concerning Brussels this week may be coming from Luxembourg, where the Court of Justice rules on the legality of intra-EU bilateral investment treaties. The week’s headlines will most likely be dominated by the looming …
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 …
In Brussels, there is a lot of movement behind the scenes to try and finalise trade agreements with Mexico, Mercosur and Japan. Investment screening is climbing the policy priority list. The EU lost a case in the World Trade Organization against Indonesia over dumping duties it applies against palm …
Trade policy isn’t the most prominent priority of Bulgaria, the Balkan country in charge of presiding the six-month rotating presidency of the European Council. Sofia has put the onus on youth, security, digital and connectivity in the Western Balkans. Trade elicits only a few very general paragraphs in Sofia’s 16-page …
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 early September 2017, the European Commission released a draft regulation that provides a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments for national security reasons. These were debated at the European Parliament on Monday (26 September 2017). The EU plans provide for a general framework of exchange of …
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.
The EU Commission’s draft proposal for a regulation on foreign investment screening, announced during the summer 2017, is what it can only be: mainly a framework to share information among member states. It also allows the Commission itself to look more closely into some “projects or programmes of Union interest …
