News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Thursday, October 28, 2021
As global attention turns to climate change and the COP26 summit, the EU’s proposal for a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is to be welcomed for advancing the debate on how concretely trade policy can help the fight against climate change from theory to action.
The United Kingdom and New Zealand have agreed on principle on a free trade agreement. While the economic gain goes mainly to New Zealand, the UK will see it as a step towards the bigger prize of CPTPP membership.
Recent set-piece speeches by ministers responsible for trade policy from two governments regarded widely as intransigent, the US and UK, failed to dispel the notion that they were just that: set speeches. The set-piece approach is symptomatic of a wider mistake involving the use of public trade diplomacy to justify …
The difficulties faced by the World Trade Organization are becoming ever more apparent in the run-up to the 12th ministerial meeting. It is time to act – or face difficult truths about its future prospects.
News of agreement on the Joint Statement Initiative on Services Domestic Regulation were a highlight of last week’s World Trade Organization’s Public Forum. Given that full-blown multilateral deals look unlikely in the immediate future in the global trade institution, deepening the trade rulebook among selected countries is better than the …
The launch of the high-level meeting of the United States and the European Union under the new form of the Trade and Technology Council has rekindled hopes of the two sides finding common ground a number of issues. But to be realised the two sides will have to tackle competing …
China’s ambition to join the eleven-country Asia Pacific pact CPTPP seems genuine. It will now be up to other countries to decide the extent to which they are comfortable with its engagement in the world trade system.
The EU sees opportunity in global regulatory leadership through the so-called Brussels Effect. But the attempt to deliberately control what has hitherto been largely market-driven is far from guaranteed to be a success.
The United Kingdom’s hopes of agreeing a bilateral free trade agreement with New Zealand in August were not met. While a deal remains likely, the delay illustrates that the UK’s CPTPP accession will not be totally straightforward.
Increasingly apparent strains in global and regional supply chains are playing into debates on the extent to which economies should be open or more self-sufficient. We should be wary of where this may lead.
