News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Thursday, May 8, 2025
When the EU decided not to renew ‘countervailing duties’ on imports of polyethylene telephtalate from Pakistan in September 2015 that had been in place for a decade, the South Asian government initially considered withdrawing a complaint it had filed a few months earlier against these measures in the WTO. …
The British government will seek to obtain an adequacy decision from Brussels over its data protection rules as it leaves the EU. Whitehall is also signalling interest in continuing to be involved in setting EU rules, a widely anticipated “future partnership” paper from the Department for Exiting the European Union …
Sneaky. But unsurprising. France’s constitutional council delivered its verdict on the EU Canada CETA free trade agreement in the depths of summer. On the very last day of July 2017, France’s so-called ‘wise men’ disclosed that they had strictly no objections to the controversial trade deal which more than …
Proclaiming that you are open to global trade sits uneasily with being hostile to foreigners. Philippe Legrain on migration and the UK government’s current approach to trade policy.
Since free trade talks between the EU and the South American bloc Mercosur were revived in 2016, there has been no serious negotiation on one of the most sensitive topics in their trading relationship: sugar. But EU and Brazil sugar industries are already active on the battleground over what could …
UK trade secretary Liam Fox is in the United States for two days of talks with US counterparts as part of a recently established US-UK trade and investment working group. Fox will further travel to Mexico. Fox is on a mission to reassure its partners that Britain will deliver stability …
The EU and China are overtly wrangling over how to handle trade defence cases under World Trade Organization rules. The WTO released working documents today that have been circulating among members of the body’s working group on rules that showcase how intense the disagreements currently run in the organisation over subsidy …
Fresh Eurostat data reveal EU investors, normally the US’ biggest foreign direct investors, shunned the United States in election year 2016. Negative investor sentiment was mutual across the Atlantic, it seems. The context is a sharp drop in outward EU foreign direct investment overall to € 186 bn (£ 166 bn) …
There’s been a frenzy of EU trade related activity this week. It looks like it’s a big rush before the summer lull. Here a curation of what we found interesting. EU and WTO round-up The EU is pressing its fellow WTO members on fisheries subsidies ahead of the Buenos Aires …
Today we will be brief….. Antique goods import licences to fight ISIS The Commission announced the launch of a new regulation that would require import licences for “archeological objects, part of monuments that have been dismembered and for rare manuscripts and incunabula” that are more than 250 years …
