News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Friday, April 25, 2025
The fact that the EU had concluded its least ambitious agreement on public procurement in a free trade agreement in many years with the four member countries of the Mercosur was well known. The recent release of the fine print of the mutual market access offers in the trade pillar …
The European Commission released today its regulation proposal for an instrument to control “foreign subsidies distorting the internal market”.
And the winner is…. the EU’s measurement instrument industry, perhaps. The European Commission recently published the final outcome of negotiations in the public procurement area agreed with Mexico as part of an upgrade of the EU Mexico Global Agreement. It took the two parties less than two years to upgrade …
Trade sniping out of Washington just doesn’t seem to be ending. Bloomberg reported yesterday that the White House was mulling pulling out of the Government Procurement Agreement, a preferential accord among a subset of mostly rich-country members of the World Trade Organization. China and Russia are in the process of …
The European Commission no longer seems to trust global norms, fora or rule-making negotiations to uphold its interests in digital, competition, industry and trade policy. In fact many norms hardly exist and won’t likely emerge so quickly. The EU’s executive arm has been rethinking its policy toolkit and is seeking …
A read through amendments tabled by trade committee members in preparation of a report on and trip to China highlights Europe’s divisions vis-à-vis the Asian country. One of the few areas of consensus is support for Taiwan. A delegation of European parliamentarians is in China this week to assess EU-China …
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. …
