On Friday the European Commission announced it was initiating a new bilateral legal dispute with Algeria under their joint Association Agreement in force since 2005. The ‘note verbale’ it sent to the Algerian government sets out the details of its complaint.
FTA dispute settlement
South Africa poultry trade dispute: panel rebuffs EU financial, customs union claims
August is traditionally quiet in European Union trade policy making. Here’s this month’s main Brussels trade story so far. A panel of arbitrators appointed under the 2016 Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and the Southern African Development Community ruled on 3 August that an import safeguard on frozen chicken …
Comment: EU Korea labour panel is milestone in Brussels’ labour right strategy
The panel report in the dispute between the EU and South Korea released today will be seen as a milestone in the European Union’s fundamental trade-related labour rights enforcement strategy, even if does not satisfy many political demands of the left-of-centre in the European Parliament nor of European labour unions.
Korea to EU: labour commitments in FTA not a legal obligation
The European Union brought its first dispute under a bilateral free trade agreement against Korea. The EU alleges that Korea’s failure to ratify several International Labour Organisation core conventions, in particular Convention 87 on freedom of association of workers, is a breach of its terms under their 2010 trade pact. …
DG Trade mulls self-initiating labour and environment breach investigations
The European Union is considering launching unilaterally investigations into breaches of environment and labour or ‘sustainable development ‘ commitments – of its trading partners.
Blog: Dispute settlement update – South Africa, Spanish olives, Appellate Body, Boeing
EU-South Africa frozen chicken dispute notched up one level further After 18 months of consultations the EU decided to request a formal panel in its long-standing dispute with the Southern African Developing Community over the latter’s safeguard on imports of frozen bone-in chicken. The EU criticises the data and the …
Week in Brussels: Movement on Mexico, Korea labour dispute, Uzbekistan
It’s been a pretty packed week. Here other low-key but important developments in EU trade policy. EU Mexico FTA stirrings The EU and Mexico had concluded negotiations towards the modernisation of a twenty year old free trade agreement in April 2018. But that agreement ‘in principle’ left the parties with …