Despite what World Trade Organization head Roberto Azevêdo calls “substantial risks that threaten the world economy”, WTO members including the EU introduced fewer trade-restricting measures in the 12 months through mid-October. Governments imposed measures such as new or higher tariffs, customs procedures, quotas and local content requirements an average of …
EU trade policies
In brief: Mercosur update
The EU and Mercosur have exchanged what they term their ‘final offers’ on market access as part of efforts to bring their almost two-decade-old talks to a close in the coming weeks. The offers exchanged yesterday cover tariffs and quotas for goods as well as services and procurement. The EU, …
Insight: EU, US and China trade – a common line of defence
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Brussels yesterday, and trade was a formal talking point on the agenda for his meetings with Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief. But nothing came out on that meeting on this topic. While trans-Atlantic cooperation on trade is largely off the …
EU trade defence reform: institutions reach final deal
The 2013 plans to overhaul the EU’s trade defence legislation are coming to fruition. The EU’s new legislation aims to modernise the EU’s trade defence instruments. Revived in 2016, the package of new measures comprises greater transparency, efforts at greater predictability of measures for traders and EU importers, and …
‘Future’ environmental compliance costs creep into EU trade-defence calculations
The EU is set to introduce ‘future’ costs of compliance with environmental and labour treaties in its calculation of injury margins in trade-defence cases. The bloc is now making systematic its consideration of a trading partner’s compliance with International Labour Organization and ‘multilateral environmental’ conventions, including the 2015 Paris Agreement …
Week ahead in EU trade: TDI, Brexit, Mercosur, CETA, torture goods
This week could seal the fate of quite a few EU trade policy files: the overhaul of the EU’s dumping regulation, the EU Mercosur trade deal and the Brexit talks. TDI reform agreement? Expectations are high that the EU will announce a deal tomorrow on the overhaul of …
A week in Brussels: Latin America, Vietnam, TDI, MIC
This week’s trade highlights of the week have been: Latin America, the EU-Vietnam free trade agreement, trade defence and the EU’s multilateral investment court plans. Deal or no deal in Mercosur, that is the question The EU has been negotiating hard with both Mercosur and Mexico this week …
EU, US disagree about value of Global Forum steel deal
The world’s leading economies have agreed on an “important and effective package” to dismantle market-distorting aid, EU trade chief Cecilia Malmström says. But the US sees it differently, contending that the agreement reached by the Group of 20’s Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity is superficial and inadequate to address steel …
China-EU proceedings in market economy WTO dispute kick off
Don’t expect the World Trade Organization to rule any time soon on China’s challenge of the EU’s free-market rules. Well over four months have passed since the three panellists who will adjudicate the case were appointed, but the panel is only holding its first meeting next week. That meeting is …
Insight: Post Brexit UK trade agreements face a reality check
As the date of Brexit approaches, Britain and various European Union trading partners are multiplying contacts with London to gauge what their future trade relationship will be once the UK leaves the bloc. As conversations with these countries deepen, the task appears increasingly complex. Current contacts with Australia and Switzerland reveal …
