News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Saturday, April 26, 2025
A very different scenario is shaping up between the European Union’s export authorisation scheme developed in March 2020 covering exports of personal protective equipment and the vaccine export authorisation scheme introduced in late January 2021 for exports of COVID-19 vaccines.
MEPs in the international trade committee are near-unanimously sceptical of the European Union’s vaccine export authorisation mechanism introduced at the end of January 2021.
This article was updated on 30 January. The European Commission released a regulation submitting exports of vaccines covered by the European Union’s advanced purchase programme to an export license. The move comes days after Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced a ‘transparency’ mechanism for such exports as a row …
The European Commission released a new strategy paper that sums up its approach to seeking greater resilience for the European Union during health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Trade is a major area of intervention.
The Ottawa Group, an informal network of countries interested in discussing reforms at the World Trade Organization established in early 2019 is seeking improvements in the way trade in healthcare products is handled beyond the current COVID-19 pandemic. The signatories are eyeing a possible Joint Statement in early 2021, which …
There is nothing ‘new’ to report from three days of meetings of WTO ambassadors this week under the format of an ‘Informal TNC’ and a ‘General Council’. As usual, the large powers have spent time bickering over ‘market oriented conditions’, ‘special and differential treatment’ for developing countries, dispute settlement, agriculture, …
With input from Sarah Anne Aarup. This week we saw an EU-China summit deliver some progress on the lengthy path towards a bilateral investment agreement. It also revealed that rules-based international trade is Chefsache in the Commission, with president von der Leyen dwelling extensively on the matter in her State …
The European Union tabled a “concept paper” on health to a group of like-minded World Trade Organization members called the Ottawa Group. The EU aims to avoid medical supply shortages as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic in similar situations in future. But it didn’t get the traction it had hoped …
Eurostat released first estimates of European Union trade in goods during the COVID-19 pandemic. The figures are staggering as expected, with extra EU-27 exports falling by 28.2% and exports by 22.7% in April 2020 alone compared to the same month last year. If one compares the trade performance cumulated over …
European Union trade ministers approached the issue of who they will support as the next World Trade Organization’s director-general with great prudence. The second ‘FAC Trade’ of the year held online today was an opportunity for EU capitals and the Commission to touch base on the bundle of recent WTO issues …
