News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Thursday, May 19, 2022
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.
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 …
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?
The Energy Charter Treaty needs to make a success of its ongoing modernisation process in the coming five years, writes Urban Rusnák.
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 …
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.
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 …
Michel Barnier successfully steered both sides to believing they won the negotiations, something that will be required to make the future relationship work.
The number of trade issues facing the new US administration is strongly related to unchanging policy fundamentals, exacerbated but not created by the Trump administration, and unlikely to change under president Joe Biden, writes David Henig.
For the United Kingdom, the year 2021 is ‘terra nova’ – its first year as an autonomous trading entity outside of the EU’s single market and customs union. The challenges ahead by Chris Horseman.
