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 …
EU FTAs & bilateral ties
Commentary: Trade can be a driver of climate action
CETA, the landmark trade agreement between the EU and Canada, holds established best practices for trade-accelerated climate action, Bernice Lee and Scott Vaughan argue as the business, civil society and policy communities gather in Brussels to consider how to merge trade and climate action.
EU-US autos: Demarty sees possible partial compromise in coming talks
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 …
Comment: EU trade dispute settlement will increasingly go bilateral
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 …
EU, ASEAN seek to settle palm oil and human rights quarrel, upgrade relationship
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 …
A week in Brussels: Negotiation mandates for US talks come with own threats to Washington
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 …
Brexit woes cast pall over future of UK-Turkish trade
Britain’s $17 billion-a-year trading relationship with Turkey will be seriously compromised – more than many other bilateral trading relationship – if the UK leaves the EU in March with no deal in place. Turkey’s customs union with the EU means its trade policy closely parallels that of the bloc. Ankara …
Member states greenlight steel safeguards, rice safeguards to proceed
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 …
EU and Mercosur still have much to talk about on trade
Revived in 2016, he decades-old EU-Mercosur free trade talks were not concluded last year as hoped by proponents. The new Bolsonaro government in Brazil, Mercosur’s biggest player, has cast a shadow over the future of the negotiations. “Meetings will resume under the Argentinian pro-tempore presidency of Mercosur in the first quarter …
USTR takes maximalist line ahead of EU trade talks
The United States Trade Representative’ s trade negotiating objectives with the European Union indicate bilateral talks ahead between Washington and Brussels will be difficult, if not outright impossible, to conclude.