The United States’ crashing into a submarine agreement Australia concluded with France, getting Paris kicked out of it and replace it with its own nuclear-powered technology, all done in secret and revealed suddenly last week is a shock to everyone.
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Measured Response: How to design an EU instrument against economic coercion
In the new geo-economic era, trade policy does not just follow trade logics, but also the logic of security policy and geopolitics. The EU needs an effective and credible anti-coercion instrument to meet the challenge. Here is how the EU could go about it.
Ramblings on the EU’s post-apocalypse trade policy
The coming months will be a challenge for advocates of international trade agreements in Brussels and the wider European Union. Post-Trump, post-Brexit and post-pandemic trade policies are bound to focus on files that respond to a sense of existential threat emanating from its member states.
Perspectives: Has the time come to retire the Free Trade Agreement?
The United Kingdom announced a bilateral free trade agreement with Australia this week. This comes at a time when such FTAs have slipped down the agenda of both the United States and the European Union. The reaction of the British public to the announcement illustrates the reasons why FTAs have …
Comment: EU-Taiwan relations in the Indo-Pacific – time for an upgrade
Despite its diplomatic isolation, Taiwan’s geostrategic significance has only increased with the pandemic and the geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China, writes Zsuzsa Anna Ferenc. But is Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation sustainable in a world paralysed by COVID-19 and torn by a race for critical technologies?
Comment: Quo Vadis Energy Charter Treaty?
The Energy Charter Treaty needs to make a success of its ongoing modernisation process in the coming five years, writes Urban Rusnák.
Towards a climate club
For the EU’s ambitious climate policy to be successful, the EU must join forces with as many international partners as possible in a climate club. In this club members agree on a minimum price for CO2 emissions, trade freely amongst themselves, but apply a carbon border adjustment mechanism – or …
Comment: The UK freeports programme’s big unanswered questions
The British government has proudly unveiled its blueprint for a chain of ‘freeports’ as a feature of the country’s post-Brexit trade landscape. But translating the “big idea” to reality on the ground will be a lot more complicated, writes Edward Farmer.
UK agriculture: How to handle the big EU trade challenges that await us
Despite the welcome news of the new Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the United Kingdom’s new third country status is unsuited to EU-UK trade in food products, argues Nick von Westenholz. To avoid new trade frictions in future the UK will need to demonstrate that innovation in agriculture can have a …
Perspectives: Lessons from Michel Barnier’s success as EU negotiator with Britain
Michel Barnier successfully steered both sides to believing they won the negotiations, something that will be required to make the future relationship work.
