There’s been loads of trade love going on in the twittosphere this week…. Alas, trade is largely a loveless type of environment…. A former European Commission negotiator once said that trade negotiations are “as unsentimental as war”. He said this from his experience in office in the middle of the …
Energy & Environment
In the shadow of America First – three EU trade conflicts flying under the radar
The EU is posing as the new champion of trade openness and guardian of the international rules-based order. But three recent trade initiatives show that Europeans are all-too eager to do the opposite of what they preach, writes Hosuk Lee-Makiyama.
Commission decision on US soy comes in handy for biodiesel producers
The ongoing trade ‘negotiations’ between the European Union and the United States are a good opportunity to try to resolve old gripes that the US holds against the EU’s import regime. One of the irritants the European Commission has tried to defuse under the shadow of a US threat to …
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, 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 …
MEPs wrangle over Japan EPA labour and environmental provisions
Insiders don’t believe the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement signed this summer faces a serious risk of being voted down in the European Parliament at the end of the year. But as the assembly enters its last months of functioning, a vocal group of left-of-centre MEPs is making a last big …
A week in Brussels: Mercosur, dairy, sustainable development chapters
It’s been an intense week on transatlantic trade and Brexit trade front. Below, other interesting bits of news in EU trade. EU-Mercosur focus A lot of noise, little extra substance on EU-Mercosur free trade talks this week. Next week, European negotiators will fly to South America for a 36th round …
WTO: Some EU energy laws discriminate against Russia, but ‘unbundling’ is legal
Russia has lost its central argument in a four-year-old World Trade Organization complaint challenging the EU’s energy market laws: the right of the bloc to prevent a single company from owning both natural gas pipelines and distribution networks. The WTO ruled today that certain energy-supply measures imposed by the EU …
E-bikes: Up to 83.6% China duties to protect EU sector with rising sales and no job losses
The established European bicycle sector has been rattled by a consumer switch to electric bikes and a surge in imports of both electric and conventional bicycles from China. That might help explain why bicycle producers obtained protection in the form of provisional dumping duties on Chinese e-bikes.
Comment: Palm and soybean oil phaseout will test EU environmental objectivity
If the EU wants to avoid losing a potential World Trade Organization dispute following its decision to phase out palm and soybean oil-based biofuels, it will need to prove its environmenal criteria are objective. For political reasons, that will be difficult, as this might involve displeasing EU rapeseed and sunflower …