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News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Sunday, May 4, 2025
Plurilateral e-commerce negotiations at the World Trade Organization are progressing, bit by bit. After a plenary session of the close to 90 participating countries on Tuesday (20 April), the conveners Japan, Australia and Singapore were able to announce that two small paragraphs of legal language were closed.
There is clearly more activity at the World Trade Organization than last year – probably even than the year before last. With a new director-general now in office, a date for the next ministerial meeting all set and hope for a more cooperative US administration, this is the time when …
Plurilateral or ‘Joint Statement’ initiatives launched in 2017 to modernise rules in the trading system start maturing. Now members face a battle over having them established in the World Trade Organization treaty framework. India and South Africa claim Joint Statement initiative deals are illegal In December 2017, a large group …
Negotiations among a subset of members of the World Trade Organization in the area of ‘services domestic regulation’ are one of the few initiatives launched in Buenos Aires in December 2017 that could come to fruition this year.
A warning, this column lets off some steam…
Some developments at the WTO this week…. Negotiators adopt second version of e-commerce agreement draft text Many observers note that negotiations on a text that would set rules for digital trade in the 21st Century have had difficulties making meaningful headway this autumn. Eighty-six WTO members have been looking in …
The conveners of the plurilateral e-commerce negotiations discreetly circulated a “stocktake” text on electronic commerce amongst World Trade Organization members at the height of the mid-August European heatwave. The e-commerce negotiations were launched among a subset of WTO members in February 2019 following a pledge at the last Buenos Aires …
The Geneva trade scene will be run by a different set of people as of this autumn….E-commerce negotiators now have a plan. And agriculture producers are be sparring about support to the sector under COVID-19 conditions. People churn in Geneva So, the WTO’s preferred candidate for the post to lead …
COVID-19 trade collapse “could have been worse” says WTO’s Azevêdo The WTO released fresh data on global trade flows during the pandemic. Initial estimates for the second quarter, when the virus and associated lockdown measures affected a large share of the global population, indicate a year‑on‑year drop of around 18.5%,” …
A lot is up in the air. With next June’s twelfth World Trade Organization ministerial conference in Kazakhstan postponed and most meetings largely called off due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, there is now much less pressure on trade negotiators to meet a big deadline and secure deals. So, what’s …
