News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Sunday, May 4, 2025
A few weeks before the Big Lockdown, the European Union announced it was suspending trade preferences enjoyed by Cambodia under Brussels’ flagship duty-free-quota-free trade regime for the world’s poorest countries. Despite the severe economic and supply chain damage wrought by the pandemic, the EU still appears to plan on pressing …
The United States Trade Representative has launched a new Section 301 investigation into the European Union’s plans to introduce a digital services tax as a means to fund its next seven-year budget. A new national security investigation could lead to tariffs on Austrian exports of vanadium. The Commission had tabled …
The European Union is revising for the second time a steel safeguard it applies to 26 product categories since February 2019. Differentiated approach to quota volumes In an approach that raises interesting World Trade Organization compatibility questions, the EU is not announcing an expansion. In fact the EU is reducing …
The trade week in the EU was significant, with new orientiations for policy spelt out as part of the bloc’s post-corona recovery plan. WTO: But the week in not entirely over as members of the WTO General Council meet today and next Tuesday online to confer about the next steps …
Today the international trade committee met for a somewhat longer session than the one held at the end of April at the height of Europe’s lockdown. Here some highlights of what’s been said. Pharma intellectual property The pharmaceutical intellectual property space is one to watch very closely post COVID-19. It …
The European Commission’s post-COVID-19 ‘recovery plan’ released today amidst strong media attention focuses mainly on financial and budget issues. But the governance of trade and global value chains is also a significant dimension of how Brussels sees a way out of the pandemic-induced slump. The European Commission adjusted its 2020 …
The EU and Japan held a bilateral virtual ‘leadership meeting’ today, in which the two parties reiterated their commitment to working together at the international level. The meeting was held in advance of a coming G7 meeting in the United States. The joint statement released after the meeting brings little …
The European Commission confirmed that it was allowing the temporary export licensing regime for personal protective equipment to lapse. The measure expired yesterday. It was introduced mid March 2020 in response to member states’ unilateral decisions to stop exports of masks, googles, gloves and protective wear including within the EU’s …
Turkey pharma case in WTO The European Commission published this week its first legal submission in a dispute it filed against Turkey last year at the World Trade Organization concerning the EU’s neighbour’s restrictive policies in the area of pharmaceuticals. The case ‘Certain Measures concerning the Production, Importation and Marketing …
Today’s mainstream media will mainly focus on the budgetary dimension of a political agreement reached between Germany and France today on policies to help the European Union’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
