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’.
Turkey & Med
Fresh post-COVID-19 winds for Euro-Mediterranean trade?
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 …
New Paneuromed rules of origin to start applying without Morocco and Tunisia
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 …
Week in Brussels: Turkey pharma case, Africa, Biodiversity
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 …
Turkey goes to WTO dispute settlement over EU steel safeguard
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 …
Week in Brussels: Airbus tariff costs and duration, Paneuromed ROO reform
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 …
Brexit woes cast pall over future of UK-Turkish trade
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 …
A week in Brussels – Tunisia, Mercosur, Australia, Western Sahara, Jordan
The ratification of the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement by the European Parliament on Wednesday boosted morale at a time when relationships with the United States remain ‘complicated’ and the WTO is sinking into crisis as the US rejected the EU’s WTO reform proposals during meetings in Geneva this week. But …
UK businesses raise alarm over state of Brexit planning for FTA ‘rollovers’
Concern is growing in the UK business community about the government’s state of preparedness for ‘rolling over’ existing EU trade accords with third countries after Brexit. While government officials in London remain adamant that discussions are progressing well with the 60 or so countries with which the EU has a …
A week in Brussels: Mercosur, Africa, CETA
It’s been a big-ticket week in trade, kicked off by a meeting between the USTR and the EU’s trade commissioner on a possible ‘deal’, and two big reports adopted by the European Parliament on relations with the United States and with China. There was also some action on the Brexit …
