News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
World Trade Organization member countries have pledged to at least make an effort to agree new disciplines on domestic agricultural subsidies at the Organization’s ministerial meeting in Kazakhstan next June. Negotiators will begin work in January 2020 on a possible new text for agreement at the Nur-Sultan ministerial, bolstered by …
United States aims to ‘reset’ transatlantic trade relations ring hollow. The US is moving ahead with further import duties on EU products. It is not interested in an OECD agreement on digital taxation. And it has definitely pulled the plug on the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body. The EU for …
The European Union was largely rebuffed in a second compliance report it requested regarding subsidies to Airbus today at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. US tariffs introduced against the EU in retaliation for these subsidies are already in place. These tariffs were authorised in October by a WTO arbitrator …
It was a low-key gathering of trade ministers in chilly Brussels today. A good moment to gauge the ‘temperature’ on all things trade amongst EU governments. Today should have been the inaugural ministerial gathering for Phil Hogan, the nominated successor to Cecilia Malmström, who led the EU trade portfolio during …
The European Union is still waiting for some form of official announcement on whether the White House will order import duties to be applied to autos and auto parts – or whether it will, as anticipated by most observers on both sides of the Pond – postpone the decision and …
This week China hosted a small ministerial conference with around thirty members of the World Trade Organization in Shanghai. Little has been reported about this low-key meeting. But it appears to have brought some movement in specific WTO files. The gathering in Shanghai offered the opportunity for the EU to …
The stink the United States and other advanced countries have been putting up in recent months at the World Trade Organization appears to be achieving some results. China and other countries have started listening. The behaviour and status of developing countries in the global trading system, industrial subsidies and state …
“Do you think that because people are dealing now with the digital economy, with e-commerce, that tomorrow you will have an agreement? Think again. We’re in for the long term on these things,” said the World Trade Organization’s Director General Roberto Azevêdo during a panel discussion at his organisation’s annual …
The General Council of the World Trade Organization had an extensive discussion of reform proposals for the institutions’ Appellate Body put together by David Walker, New Zealand’s envoy to the institution in Geneva. The ball is now in the camp of the members to take further decisions in the coming …
Perhaps the many behind-the-scenes meetings held by officials, experts and lawyers on the sides of the World Trade Organization’s Public Forum this week in Geneva will have been worth the time, energy and travel expenses. One cannot exclude some movement in the coming weeks over the organisation’s Appellate Body impasse, …
