News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Tuesday, May 18, 2021
There is clearly more activity at the World Trade Organization than last year – probably even than the year before last. With a new director-general now in office, a date for the next ministerial meeting all set and hope for a more cooperative US administration, this is the time when …
Plurilateral or ‘Joint Statement’ initiatives launched in 2017 to modernise rules in the trading system start maturing. Now members face a battle over having them established in the World Trade Organization treaty framework. India and South Africa claim Joint Statement initiative deals are illegal In December 2017, a large group …
Ahead of the last General Council meeting of the year – the agenda of which is now finally out -, US Ambassador to the WTO Dennis Shea, who represented the Trump administration in Geneva and oversaw the blockage of the Appellate Body, made a farewell speech as he prepares to …
Some developments at the WTO this week…. Negotiators adopt second version of e-commerce agreement draft text Many observers note that negotiations on a text that would set rules for digital trade in the 21st Century have had difficulties making meaningful headway this autumn. Eighty-six WTO members have been looking in …
There is loads going on in the WTO this week: the end of the COVID-19 Geneva institution lockdown is on! Some meetings are still held online, though. There was a Trade Negotiation Committee meeting on Monday, there will be a General Council meeting over the next two days with a …
Three candidates from African continent So now it’s official. There are now three candidates from the African continent vying for the WTO’s director-general job. Kenya submitted the candidacy of Amina Mohamed, a high-profile Kenyan politician and a former envoy to the WTO who hosted the last ministerial meeting in Nairobi …
COVID-19 trade collapse “could have been worse” says WTO’s Azevêdo The WTO released fresh data on global trade flows during the pandemic. Initial estimates for the second quarter, when the virus and associated lockdown measures affected a large share of the global population, indicate a year‑on‑year drop of around 18.5%,” …
The 12th World Trade Organization ministerial conference has been cancelled at the request of the Kazakhstan hosts, due to the Corona virus. So what comes next?
WTO members – 59 of them including the European Union and China – met this week for a round on negotiations to make applying for licenses and occupational certifications abroad simpler and more transparent, in a process you may never have heard of. Domestic Regulation in Services, one of the …
More than 70 WTO Members will spend the next five months trying to negotiate new rules on how governments regulate investment and treat investors in their countries as part of the ‘Structured Discussions on Investment Facilitation’. The rules they aim to agree primarily focus on predictability, transparency, simplicity and equity …
