News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Monday, March 27, 2023
Pressure from Canada for improved access to the UK’s market for agricultural products is blocking the conclusion of talks on UK accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership, according to people close to the negotiations. There had been hopes, widely reported in some media, that last week’s …
The fourteen members of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework meeting in Australia this weekend for its first full negotiating round will need to think very carefully about the critical red lines that are behind the positions of a United States acting without Trade Promotion Authority.
The end of the Asian ‘summit season’ brings a big sigh of relief to most participating members. The region appears to have gotten through November without any apparent disasters, leaders managed to agree on statements, and some new initiatives were announced for trade.
Expansion has been baked into the DNA of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership. But the ongoing United Kingdom accession has revealed how challenging the process is in practice for the members as other countries have joined the queue.
Countries in the Asia-Pacific are trailblazing innovative and flexible digital trade rules at a time when negotiations in the World Trade Organization advance at snail’s pace – at the risk of creating a confusing new set of overlapping rules.
Former prime minister Boris Johnson’s ebullient promise to conclude at least an interim trade agreement between the United Kingdom and India “by Diwali” has been officially abandoned by the new team in London – just a few days before the Hindu festival begins. Here is where the talks are at.
Speaking to Rob Francis in Brussels during a whistle-stop tour of Europe, Christoph Heider, president of the European Chamber of Commerce in Korea, said that updating the EU-Korea free trade agreement is “not a priority” for the current Korean government.
There is to be no ‘fast-tracking’ of the United Kingdom’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The European Services Forum’s managing director Pascal Kerneis discussed EU-Singapore trade relations with Iana Dreyer’s Borderlex. So what is at stake with the coming revision of their 2019 free trade agreement and with the planned Digital Partnership Agreement?
Hopes that the United Kingdom will complete its accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership by the end of this year are fading, amid indications that the accession talks are progressing less smoothly than had initially been hoped.
