News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Sunday, April 27, 2025
Insisting that it has complied with a World Trade Organization ruling faulting its ban on European pork imports, Russia has asked for consultations with the EU to discuss the matter. If the discussions fail to resolve the dispute – as they almost certainly will – Moscow’s next step would be …
European tariffs on Indonesian biodiesel are illegal, the World Trade Organization said today in a ruling that contains the same basic findings as in a similar WTO complaint lodged by Argentina. But the panel went even further, faulting the EU’s profit calculations and finding serious defects with the bloc’s export-price …
Among trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström’s pledges in her 2015 ‘Trade for All’ strategy there is stepping up the fight against corruption. This promise is gradually being translated into action with new anti-corruption provisions foreseen in the coming updated EU Mexico Global Agreement and recently launched EU Chile Association Agreement upgrade. …
This week was relatively calm in the Brussels policy world. The entire European Commission team flew to Sofia feting Bulgaria as it took over the EU presidency for the next six months, lavishing praise and money on the bloc’s poorest country. Technocrat trade negotiators are far away in Mexico trying to hammer …
The European Commission published the bulk of the text of the EU Japan Economic Partnership Agreement in early December last year. Below some highlights of the pact and some comments – result of your truly’s Christmas break reading. The deal favours significantly EU exporters and is relatively unambitious in services.
Not surprisingly, Moscow has announced that it plans to fight efforts by the EU to slap 1.39 billion euros in trade sanctions on Russia for failing to lift a ban on European pork and pigs. If the EU convinces World Trade Organization judges that Russia continues to flout global trade …
The clock is ticking as the EU and Mexico work to secure a framework to upgrade their 17-year-old trade agreement by the end of the month. The two sides made progress on issues including market access and intellectual property during their sixth round of discussions in November, and negotiators held …
The World Trade Organization has done a good job of tamping down any expectation that its upcoming ministerial meeting will agree on much of anything.
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 …
The world’s leading economies have agreed on an “important and effective package” to dismantle market-distorting aid, EU trade chief Cecilia Malmström says. But the US sees it differently, contending that the agreement reached by the Group of 20’s Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity is superficial and inadequate to address steel …
