Unrivalled coverage of European trade policy
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
The European Commission released its proposals on reforming the World Trade Organization. The move comes ahead of meetings with US, Japanese and Canadian trade ministers next week in North America. A draft version of the EU’s think piece was already circulated to the press this summer – our piece here. …
Like the proverbial nail in the coffin, the US announcement this week that it would not back the reappointment of Appellate Body member Shree Baboo Chekitan Servansing may signal the end of the World Trade Organization’s highest court as we know it. As one trade lawyer put it, the Appellate …
The EU and the US clashed this week over a sensitive World Trade Organization Appellate Body compliance ruling. Last May, WTO judges said the EU continued to violate its WTO obligations in relation to launch aid for the Airbus aircraft series A350 and A380. Ever since the ruling came out, …
In one month, the WTO’s Appellate Body will only have three members left. The United States blocked the reappointment of its latest outgoing member, Shree Babu Chekitan Servansing. Since 2016, Washington has been blocking the appointment of the seven-member body. The US argues that the WTO’s top judges are overstepping …
Turkey is definitely not playing chicken when it comes to standing up to US pressure. Ankara has responded to a US decision to double duties on Turkish steel and aluminium by raising its own tariffs on nearly two dozen American products, announcing a boycott of US electronics such as iPhones …
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 Trump administration’s trade complaints against import duties applied by Canada, China, the EU, Mexico and Turkey on US goods are short and sweet – and almost identical. Washington argues that the measures are discriminatory and, except in the case of Mexico, they exceed permitted duty rates. The US lodged …
The EU’s proposals to overhaul the World Trade Organization are gaining traction among some if its leading members. The reform momentum, triggered by the Appellate Body member nomination crisis and the United States’ unilaterally imposed tariffs on steel and aluminium, appears to have elicited a US riposte with new proposals …
Washington has hit back at five World Trade Organization members for “illegal” tariffs that were imposed on US products in response to the Trump administration’s decision to apply duties on foreign steel and aluminium. The US announcement today that it had filed five complaints targeting the EU, China, Canada, Mexico and …
The EU is stepping up the pace in bringing forward a World Trade Organization reform agenda announced this spring as the crisis over Appellate Body nominations deepens in Geneva and the world entered the turbulent waters of tit-for-tat trade retaliation in the aftermath of the US decision to impose unilateral …
