News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
A rift between a large group of leading World Trade Organization members and the United States deepened on Friday (15 September 2017) as an informal dispute settlement body meeting ended with no agreement on the appointment of three Appellate Body members. Washington is blocking the appointments of successors to …
The latest Appellate Body report confirms that it has jurisdiction over expired measures when these are annulled or lapse during a dispute settlement proceeding in the World Trade Organization. It also rebuffs once more the EU for not properly disclosing information to the foreign companies it investigates in trade defence …
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 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 …
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 …
The European Parliament has started working on the EU’s revised so-called ‘IPI’ regulation. Rapporteur Daniel Caspary (EPP, Germany) is not entirely happy with the proposed changes to the EU’s International Procurement Instrument legislation. The EU is working on a revision of a regulatory proposal initiated in 2012 under then trade commissioner …
The Foreign Trade Association, the EU’s main retailing and light industry organisation, released a new position paper on EU plans to adapt its trade defence methodology as it moves to do away with ‘non market economy’ status for countries like China. The organisation calls on the European Parliament to review its demands. The move came …
Diplomats at the G20 summit in Hamburg hosted by Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel managed to cobble together a compromise text promising not to resort to trade protectionism. Whether their joint statement will eliminate the threat of trade wars or, possibly, the tearing apart of the World Trade Organization, remains to be …
The EU and Japan are expected to announce they have concluded four-year-old free trade negotiations at a summit in Brussels attended by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday (6 June 2017) in Brussels. They also plan to make a bigger point about free trade. The draft joint declaration, which …
The world is watching as the United States holds a hearing on Thursday (22 June 2017) in Congress on the so-called Section 232 investigation, gauging whether imports of steel and aluminium harm US national security. After NATO members calling on the US not to harm exports of US allies, steel …
