“It will come. And soon,” a source close to the Indonesian government said when asked if and when Jakarta would file a dispute at the World Trade Organization in response to the EU’s new rules on biofuel mixes being released today (21 May). Tuesday was the final act of a …
Miscellaneous EU trade files
Week in Brussels: Andean community, EU-US cheese GIs war, Singapore FTA in Karlsruhe
This column was written with input from Chris Horseman. This has been an eventful week, with EU-US trade frictions, e-commerce, Mercosur, the Energy Charter Treaty, Australia and New Zealand, and WTO fish talks featuring high on the agenda. Below are other notable developments. Andean countries safeguard commodities exports to UK …
Week Ahead in EU trade: EU-US, steel, UK customs union
This will perhaps be the quietest of all three holiday-heavy weeks spanning Easter in late April to Europe Day this coming Thursday. But it is only the quiet before the storm. Next week will be manic – so let’s use this one to recharge batteries ahead of a second half …
Steel: EU to stop duplication of safeguard and anti-dumping duties, faces new Russian WTO complaint
The European Union’s safeguard on imports of steel enacted earlier this year has made many EU trading partners and large chunks of Europe’s manufacturing industry unhappy. The import restrictions were enacted to avoid the steel industry taking an unnecessary hit from the global trade frictions triggered after the United States …
Member states want to be consulted ahead of any EU-US negotiation suspension
The Council’s negotiating directives to the European Commission aim to ease the way towards negotiations with the United States on elimination of tariffs on goods and on conformity assessment. But will they make life easier for transatlantic negotiators? Not really. Member states mainly made amendments to the mandate on elimination …
Week in Brussels: Russian WTO steel case against EU, procurement reciprocity, Korean labour
China and EU-US trade relations dominated the news this week. Here’s a selection of what else happened. EU to face new Russian WTO complaint over steel anti-dumping duties This week in Geneva, Russia requested a panel in a dispute filed in February 2017 against the EU’s anti-dumping duties on cold-rolled …
Cambodian rice producers sue European Union over rice safeguards
In January 2019, the European Union reintroduced restrictive quotas on imports of rice from Cambodia and Myanmar following a complaint from Italy that these were harming its own rice growers. Cambodian rice farmers won’t just let that pass. So-called Indica rice from the two countries is now subject to a …
More WTO members announce retaliation against EU steel safeguards
The European Union introduced a safeguard against imports of steel last January. The move was made in response to the United States import restrictions on steel under Section 232 in 2018 and aims to avoid the European market from being flooded by metal diverted away from North America. But Brussels’ …
EU sues India and Turkey at WTO over tariffs and intellectual property violations
The European Union is suing India over recent tariff increases above its bound rates in the World Trade Organization. Brussels is also filing a case against Turkey due to what the EU thinks is WTO-inconsistent treatment of its pharmaceutical companies. India tariffs Since 2014, India has been gradually increasing import …
Beyond Brussels: Brazil accepts to forego WTO developing country status
Two alpha-males met in Washington yesterday and displayed their mastery of the Art of the Deal. But it’s worth looking at at the fine print of the Brazil-United States understanding reached last night.
