News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Ever since preliminary talks with Turkey on ‘modernising’ its customs union with the European Union were initiated seven years ago, the issue has disappeared and resurfaced with the ebb and flow of a turbulent bilateral EU-Turkey relationship. The project was recently revived – so what’s at stake?
European Union member states, who came together at a summit today, have given the green light to the resumption of a stalled trade conversation with Turkey. The move follows on a recent de-escalation of political tensions with Ankara over the East Mediterranean and a recommendation by the European Commission to …
It’s been an eventful one and a half days on the foreign policy front – with significant implications for EU trade policy Here a little ‘quick and dirty’ update on where things stand. Airbus and steel and aluminium disputes on the immediate agenda of EU & US New USTR Katherine …
This has been Brexit week on both sides of the Channel. The dinner between Ursula von der Leyen and Boris Johnson on Wednesday night did not bring us closer to a breakthrough on the most thorny issue of ‘the level playing field’.
This week’s Union for the Mediterranean trade ministerial meeting saw leaders express hopes for stronger regional economic integration and a greater role for the region in ‘near-shoring’ industrial supply chains in the post-Covid-19 era. But twenty-five years into the existence of the Barcelona Process – which ministers celebrated this week …
Simplifying rules of origin for the hub-and-spoke preferential trade arrangements in the European Union’s neighbourhood is anything but a simple exercise. The renegotiation of the Regional Convention on pan-Euro-Mediterranean preferential rules of origin – the PEM convention – has been going on for a decade. It aims at introducing a …
Turkey pharma case in WTO The European Commission published this week its first legal submission in a dispute it filed against Turkey last year at the World Trade Organization concerning the EU’s neighbour’s restrictive policies in the area of pharmaceuticals. The case ‘Certain Measures concerning the Production, Importation and Marketing …
The European Union is revising for a second time its steel import safeguard which it formally introduced in February 2019. Turkey is now potentially complicating the process. Imports of steel from across the world were restricted following the United States’ decision to introduce high tariffs on steel imports on national …
It’s been a horrible week for trade aficionados. The US said no to proposed WTO Appellate Body reforms, US tariffs on EU exports are kicking in, and one had to follow the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement negotiations. The final Brexit deal implies customs contortions in Northern Ireland which many policy wonks …
Britain’s $17 billion-a-year trading relationship with Turkey will be seriously compromised – more than many other bilateral trading relationship – if the UK leaves the EU in March with no deal in place. Turkey’s customs union with the EU means its trade policy closely parallels that of the bloc. Ankara …
