News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Friday, February 26, 2021
Now that the European Union has inked an investment agreement with China it needs to take a big-picture geopolitical approach to the rest of the Asian region and a forward-looking approach to transatlantic relations, argues Reinhard Bütikofer in an interview with Borderlex.
The panel report in the dispute between the EU and South Korea released today will be seen as a milestone in the European Union’s fundamental trade-related labour rights enforcement strategy, even if does not satisfy many political demands of the left-of-centre in the European Parliament nor of European labour unions.
The European Parliament released a series of motions for resolutions on human rights in foreign countries this week. Two could have direct consequences for existing EU investment and trade agreements if MEPs consider that the human rights situation in the relevant countries is deteriorating. China investment deal ratification tied to …
The European Union brought its first dispute under a bilateral free trade agreement against Korea. The EU alleges that Korea’s failure to ratify several International Labour Organisation core conventions, in particular Convention 87 on freedom of association of workers, is a breach of its terms under their 2010 trade pact. …
The European Union is considering launching unilaterally investigations into breaches of environment and labour or ‘sustainable development ‘ commitments – of its trading partners.
The three European Union institutions finalised negotiations to expand the scope of its dual-use export control regime to cybersurveillance technology with the aim of protecting human rights.
If you think a second wave of COVID-19 lockdowns is nigh, think twice: trade policy activity has never been so busy since European Union countries shut down or went into slow motion last March to await the passing of the pandemic at home. Online or offline: a lot is happening! …
European institutions hope they can soon finalise long drawn-out negotiations to expand the scope of the European Union’s 2009 dual-use item export control regulation to cover cyber-surveillance and human rights abuses. The latest version of the regulation foresees room to introduce restrictions on exports in emerging technologies.
The European Parliament can’t wait to shape European Union-wide legislation on supply chain resilience and sustainability post COVID-19. Public opinion pressure on politicians has led France to introduce legislation obliging its multinational companies to observe due diligence in the area of human rights. About ten countries in the EU, including …
In many ways this has been a week full of trade defence news: the first European Court of Auditors report on EU trade defence policy was released this week, and Turkey decided to go to court in Geneva over the EU’s steel safeguard. There is also the ever-simmering tariff guerilla …
