Unrivalled coverage of European trade policy
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
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 …
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 …
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 …
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.
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 …
On Monday, seven World Trade Organization members raised concerns about the EU’s new Renewable Energy Directive during a goods committee meeting. In January, the European Parliament voted to ban palm oil from the bloc’s targets for consumption of renewable energy for transport by 2021, in a shift away from earlier …
There’s about one year to go before its top leadership gets renewed. Yet the European Commission risks missing out on the early harvest it reaped in its free trade agreement negotiations with ASEAN members in the first years of this legislature, writes Iana Dreyer. The EU’s executive is trying …
Proponents of giving equal weight to labour and environment provisions in relation to commercial commitments in the EU’s free trade agreements were disappointed. On Tuesday, the European Commission ended a six-month consultation process with nongovernmental organisations and business by releasing a ‘non paper’ on how to strengthen so-called trade and …
Foreign affairs ministers met today in Sofia to take decisions on a variety of difficult foreign affairs files. The picture isn’t rosy, with Syria, Venezuela or Myanmar on top of leaders’ agenda. The Foreign Affairs Council also devised a few new conclusions on the EU’s climate diplomacy. The use …
European tariffs on Indonesian biodiesel are illegal, the World Trade Organization said today in a ruling that contains the same basic findings as in a similar WTO complaint lodged by Argentina. But the panel went even further, faulting the EU’s profit calculations and finding serious defects with the bloc’s export-price …
