News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
The ongoing trade ‘negotiations’ between the European Union and the United States are a good opportunity to try to resolve old gripes that the US holds against the EU’s import regime. One of the irritants the European Commission has tried to defuse under the shadow of a US threat to …
Four dozen World Trade Organization members including the EU, China and the US will kick off negotiations on digital trade in March in a move designed to reinvigorate the beleaguered trade body. Meanwhile, a group of ‘like-minded’ members led by Canada warned that risks to the multilateral trading system – …
It’s been an intense week! The EU was involved in the launch of plurilateral negotiations on e-commerce (Jennifer will have more) in Switzerland. That will be a boost to the World Trade Organization. Southeast Asia also featured highly on the agenda as a ministerial meeting was held this week amid rows …
There have been media reports that EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström, speaking at Davos today, appeared to be confident that the United States would not slap tariffs on imports of European autos on national security grounds. The US is preparing a report on the national security implications of car imports …
The European Commission’s director-general for trade thinks a partial deal on auto tariffs is feasible with the United States. Jean-Luc Demarty does not expect any tariff liberalisation accord with the US to be finalised before this year’s European elections. The EU and the US are expected to launch trade negotiations …
Seeing that the World bTrade Organization survives, and that its dispute settlement function survives, remains independent and keeps is ‘bite’, is one of the EU’s current strategic priorities. In practice, the WTO dispute settlement system will weaken regardless of EU efforts to amend it, and the bloc will increasingly take …
The EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations announced plans yesterday to upgrade their relationship to a ‘strategic partnership’. But palm oil and human rights disagreements continue to put sand in the wheels of the bilateral cooperation machinery. Strategic partner status tends to mean little in practice. For the …
The European Commission tabled draft mandates to member states today to allow it to start trade negotiations with the United States. The move comes following the trade truce between the White House and the commission reached last July and following a meeting between trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström and US Trade Representative …
Globalisation and robotics will eventually improve the world, but they are creating competition for services jobs that is coming quickly and in ways that will seem very unfair, Richard Baldwin tells Borderlex. Workers and governments must prepare for the advance of ‘globotics’.
European Union quotas on imports of 26 steel product categories that have been in place provisionally since July will become definitive after member states gave the green light to the move today in Brussels. The European Commission also decided to go ahead with imposing safeguards on Indica rice from Cambodia …
