A letter by twelve EU member states supporting the Commission in its endeavour to see through the trade agreement concluded with Canada (CETA) this autumn and to finalise TTIP negotiations with the United States was received as a weak and puny last ditch attempt to salvage the projects. But does …
EU trade policies
Malmström asks Council to fast-forward Ecuador FTA decision
Commissioner Malmström is trying to accelerate the ratification of Ecuador’s planned accession to the 2012 free trade agreement between the EU and Peru and Colombia by asking the member states to fast track their decision. The move was made ahead of a visit to Brussels by Ecuador’s Vice President Jorge Glas and its Minister of Foreign Trade of Ecuador Juan Carlos …
Report: TiSA needs to prepare for expansion to China, developing countries
A new report published by the German Development Institute calls on TiSA parties to pay closer attention to ensuring developing countries can join later and are not negatively affected by the deal.
Exclusive: EU delay in tabling data flow language in TiSA
The EU is running late in tabling its text on data flows in TiSA due to internal Commission wranglings over data privacy.
Parliament greenlights EU SADC agreement
The European Parliament agreed to the EU’s Economic Partnership Agreement with the Southern African Development Community. The region-to-region trade deal was adopted in June 2016, after more than a decade of negotiations. The EPA introduces reciprocal preferential market access between the EU on the one hand, and Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, and South …
Jean-Claude Juncker presses for CETA
Commission president Juncker called on the EU to ratify CETA, the trade agreement with Canada concluded in February, and urged member states to accept reforms to the EU’s antidumping laws. “One billion more worth of exports creates fourteen thousand extra jobs in Europe”, Juncker said. “This is in …
CJEU: Advocate General slams 2015 Morocco trade agreement ruling
The EU Council has increased its chances to win an appeal against a ruling by the General Court in December 2015 that invalidated a 2012 EU trade agreement with Morocco because it purportedly did not take into account human rights considerations in the territory of Western Sahara. The Advocate General’s opinion released today …
Oranges and sugar concerns put EU Southern Africa trade deal ratification at risk
Orange grove in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.
Germany: how minority groups have come to dominate the public debate on TTIP
Origin of the graph: Matthias Bauer, ECIPE. Has Germany’s public debate on TTIP been hijacked by two minority political parties? At least some evidence is now emerging that the discussion on the transatlantic treaty has been distorted by a highly active network of ‘civil society’ groups gravitating around the …
In brief: Glimpses of TTIP’s institutional setup
TTIP’s institutional setup is shaping up to become quite inclusive. Too much perhaps? The ten ‘textual proposals’ the EU Commission tabled to the United States Trade Representative during the fourtenth round of negotiations in July are gradually being unplucked and analysed by experts. Elaine Fahey is one of those geeky law …
