News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Saturday, July 24, 2021
July is the traditional time to take stock of EU trade policy, August usually being a more reliable and lengthy pause than the end of the year. The European Commission’s initially rather low-key trade agenda in the first semester of 2021 has become far more interesting and fast-moving. This is …
The European Union and United Kingdom are among those actively reconsidering the traditional links between trade policy and broader public policy objectives such as tackling climate change. While not without risks, conditioning access to one’s market on a trading partner addressing such global challenges seems the best way forward to …
The growing importance of e-commerce has not been well reflected in trade policy instruments. While there are many initiatives ongoing, a global rule-book seems likely to remain elusive for some time. As e-commerce continues to grow this may not be such a big problem as it appears.
The British national standards body BSI will remain a member of CEN and CENELEC, the leading European standardisation bodies, following a recent decision by their general assemblies. Agreement between European and British standards organisations is a novelty in recent UK-EU relations. There are lessons to learn from this step, which …
The recently announced EU-US Trade and Technology Council is the latest of many attempts to encourage closer cooperation across the Pond. Previous initiatives have not delivered: if this one is to be different we need to learn the lessons from previous experiences, not least the need to involve political leaders …
The United Kingdom announced a bilateral free trade agreement with Australia this week. This comes at a time when such FTAs have slipped down the agenda of both the United States and the European Union. The reaction of the British public to the announcement illustrates the reasons why FTAs have …
The US is back at the G7. The trade and finance ministers’ meetings ahead of the coming summit confirm – and overwhelmingly reflect – current US thinking on international issues. European Union and United Kingdom governments may want to think about how these tally with their own objectives, writes David …
Contrary to the current dominant narrative, the global trade system has responded impressively to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s time to acknowledge this.
While the debate on agriculture around a potential UK-Australia trade deal seems familiar, it may be that technology is going to change the nature of such trade fundamentally in years to come.
Behind the increasing number of major ongoing trade policy initiatives at domestic and international level lies a fundamental question about the future structure of the world trading system, writes David Henig.
