News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Thursday, May 19, 2022
The number of commentaries proclaiming the end of globalisation will probably increase. The expected difficulties of finding consensus at the WTO’s 12th ministerial conference next June will add to these arguments. Cross-border business in fact remains healthy. But uncertainty around future policy choices may have a corrosive effect.
The World Trade Organization is pressing ahead with controversial plans to shake up the workings of its secretariat – even though many in Geneva remain nervous about the planned overhaul and what it will deliver. Management consultants McKinsey have been commissioned for a second time by the WTO’s Director-General, Ngozi …
The United States is “prepared for deepened engagement” with other WTO members on the role of the Appellate Body and other questions relating to the functioning of the Organization, according to the country’s recently-appointed ambassador to the WTO, María Luisa Pagán. But she has refused to lift the US’s long-standing …
The European Union’s ambassador to the World Trade Organization spoke to our deputy editor Chris Horseman about prospects for the institution and for the next ministerial conference in June. ***
The General Council of the WTO met informally today to take stock of a range of issues, but most importantly to try to nail down a definitive date for the next ministerial conference – also known at MC12.
The recent compromise reached by the US, EU, India and South Africa over Intellectual Property and COVID-19 vaccines is neither perfect nor guaranteed to succeed but it is a reminder that agreements are possible in the World Trade Organization. Despite the remaining serious challenges to the trading system, signs of …
Can the world navigate its way through the supply chain and price crises triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine without triggering large-scale rejection of the principles of an open trading system?
The new director-general of the World Trade Organization is serious about her desire to see change in the way things get done in Geneva. Her ambitions have irked some diplomats and also created a furore over a slew of resignations in the WTO secretariat that have come to light in …
New disputes raised at the WTO and an accession process starting at the OECD demonstrates countries across the world still see value in plurilateral and multilateral institutions.
There was much less of a void at or around the WTO this week. Here a round-up of developments around the world trade instirution this week. Today trade ministers are holding their annual Swiss-hosted informal WTO ministerial not, as usual, on the sidelines of Davos but online.
