News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Wednesday, April 21, 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 …
The countdown to a negotiated transatlantic Airbus-Boeing subsidy solution has begun today. Last Friday US President Joe Biden and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a mutual four-month temporary suspension of tariffs imposed in 2020 following a 16-year old legal dispute at the World Trade Organization: these tariff …
Malaysia has followed its neighbour Indonesia in taking WTO action against the European Union’s renewable fuel directive, in a fresh challenge to the legitimacy of Brussels’ flagship biofuels programme.
The only thing that is certain in this beginning of the year at the World Trade Organization – a body that is yet awaiting the nomination of its next director-general – is that many members disagree. So they file legal disputes.
The General Council has run into a third day of meetings in Geneva today. At the time of writing, WTO members were still meeting. Despite the intensity of the session, there is a sense of failure as the organisation has not been able to agree on anything except the budget …
Last woman standing: Appellate Body member Hong Zhao says good-bye China’s Appellate Body member was the last woman standing until yesterday. Hong Zhao, a Chinese scholar, was long a thorn in the eye of the United States. Since the terms of two colleagues expired in early December last year, Ms …
Hong Kong contests US ‘China’ label for its goods exports Hong Kong has filed a dispute against a new United States rule that obliges goods exports from Hong Kong to be labelled as coming from ‘China’. Hong Kong, a WTO member, is a separate customs territory and nominally a different …
Updated on 13 October 2020 at 18.11 CET. The European Union may retaliate against the United States following damage to Airbus’ sales of aircraft to prospective clients from government subsidies to Boeing. The amount of annual trade that may be covered by EU retaliation is US $ 3.99 billion.
The United States’s envoy to the World Trade Organization Dennis Shea poured cold water on any hopes – if there were any left – that this administration would enter into negotiations on reforming and restoring the institution’s Appellate Body.
Views on what should be included in the coming revamp of a trade ‘enforcement regulation’ tabled by the European Commission late last year are still wide apart.
