News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
The trade relationship between the European Union and United Kingdom remains on a fragile footing, despite an important step yesterday (15 April) by two key European Parliament committees to endorse last December’s Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the two sides.
United Kingdom-EU trade scrutiny will happen regardless, it seems… ‘Shadow’ committee to scrutinise EU-UK trade relations outside Parliament A pro-European UK thinktank has set up what amounts to a ‘shadow’ parliamentary committee to assess the impact of the UK’s exit from the EU single market, and to scrutinise the UK’s …
Further progress is being made in the campaign to renegotiate the splitting of European Union tariff rate quotas between the United Kingdul and the EU27, following the former’s departure from the EU customs union as from 1 January this year.
The European Parliament’s political group leaders have met today to decide what to do next about the ratification of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. These are the next steps: the foreign affairs committee and the international trade committee will vote on the deal on Thursday (15 April 2021). The …
The European Commission has risked complicating its ongoing free trade agreement negotiations with Australia and New Zealand by authorising a Cypriot cheese speciality as a new geographical indication. This move also opens up a new potential area of conflict in its relationship with the United Kingdom.
Political tensions around Northern Ireland have calmed down. UK delivers requested ‘roadmap’ on Northern Ireland protocol implementation One of the European Commission’s key demands in its acrimonious debate with the UK over the Northern Ireland Protocol appears this week to have been met. British government sources reported on Thursday that …
The European Union and United Kingdom have agreed a ‘memorandum of understanding’ on financial services – a modest but positive first step towards closer cooperation between the two sides in this sector.
The European Union has called on the United Kingdom to produce a ‘roadmap’ for complying with its obligations under the Northern Ireland protocol “in the next coming days”. The demand by the Commission was made at the end of a tense meeting of the EU-UK Joint Committee late last week, …
The famous ‘cliff edge’ has not entirely been averted yet….
Disagreements over fisheries nearly sunk last year’s trade negotiations between the UK and the EU. A deal was eventually signed, which repatriated some – but not all – of the fish resources in UK waters back to UK control.
