Tag: international trade

European Union trade chief Karel De Gucht asked for broad new trade powers on Wednesday (10 April) to make it easier to launch anti-dumping cases, particularly against China.

A potentially damaging trade row has flared up between EU and Chinese trade authorities as China claims Europe has been unfairly subsidising potato starch exports.

The European Union and the Mercosur group of four South American countries relaunched talks on Monday (17 May) aimed at creating the world's largest trading bloc despite warnings that a deal could hurt EU farmers.

The European Union cannot make more concessions on farm trade to restart stalled world trade talks and the United States must make the first move, the EU's new trade chief said on Monday (22 March).

A burgeoning middle class and expanding green industries make India an attractive proposition for expanding European firms. However, understanding local business culture and laws is the difference between success and failure, Poul Jensen, director of the European Business and Technology Centre, India, told EurActiv in an interview.

Europe's new External Action Service (EEAS) could serve as a first port-of-call for small businesses looking to gain a foothold in foreign markets, according to Europe's main business lobby group.

A breakthrough in deadlocked world trade talks would be a major boon to European businesses and help companies to expand into emerging markets, according to Alessandro Barberis, president of Eurochambres, which represents EU chambers of commerce.

China will get the biggest increase in voting power at the International Monetary Fund when the global lender completes a long-awaited restructuring in 2011, the head of the IMF said on Tuesday (22 September).

Europe's importance for Brazilian companies is growing, not only as a market for its goods but also as a region from which new investment can be attracted, corporate communications consultant Ciro Dias Reis told EurActiv in an interview.

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso welcomed the arrival of Baroness Ashton, who was nominated on Friday (3 October) to replace Peter Mandelson at the trade portfolio.

For the third year running, global trade negotiations came to a disappointing end yesterday (29 July) as countries refused to compromise on opening up their national markets for agricultural goods. The talks in Geneva were considered a "last chance" for a deal before the US Presidential elections in November and are unlikely to be reopened before January next year at the very earliest.

Despite optimism from World Trade Organisation officials that new negotiating drafts presented on 19 and 20 May will act as a "springboard" towards achieving a global trade pact, the EU and its major trading partners have reacted cautiously.

If the EU's trade policy is to fulfil its potential as a "powerful instrument for African development", its system of economic partnership agreements (EPAs) needs a rethink, argue Kalypso Nicolaïdis and Paul Collier for Open Democracy.

Published in Bruegel's collection of essays  Fragmented Power: Europe and the Global Economy , Arne Bigsten's contribution assesses the EU's development policy, and states that "it is in Europe's interest to have functioning and flourishing states in the developing world", to increase trade and growth and reduce terrorism.

Published in Bruegel's collection of essays Fragmented Power: Europe and the Global Economy , Simon J. Evenett's contribution assesses the role and importance of the EU in international trade negotiations, and claims that "a fundamental rethink of the ends and means of European trade policy is in order".

A recent decision by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in a case concerning imports of re-treaded tyres in Brazil can "become a milestone in WTO jurisprudence on trade and the environment", according to Julia Qin of the American Society of International Law (ASIL).

Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson will meet with his counterparts from the US, India and China this week in what are being termed "definitive" discussions on freeing up global trade.

Multilateral liberalisation of trade should be the centre of European trade strategy, argues Patrick Messerlin – professor of economics, Sciences Po - in a new paper for the European Centre for International Political Economy. The recent shift in European trade policy to negotiate bilateral agreements is taking Europe into dangerous waters, he believes.

As part of Bertelsmann Stiftung's 'Transatlantic Thinkers' series, David Vogel – Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley – examines the current political efforts for less regulation in transatlantic trade, which was the main focus of the latest EU-US summit.   

A staged court session adjourned on 23 November after a split jury failed either to acquit or to condemn EU trade policy against accusations that it exacerbates poverty in the third world and contributes to the destruction of the environment.

Claudio Murri, chair of AmCham EU’s managing board, tells EurActiv that a deal on the core elements of the Doha Round is still possible before the expiry of President George W. Bush's trade-negotiating authority in July 2007.

As EU ministers struggle to decide whether to impose duties on Asian-shoe imports to protect European industry, the Commission is to lay out a new trade strategy that rejects protectionism.

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on how the EU should manage its relationship with China in the twenty-first century. 

This is a working paper from Mohamed Hedi Bchir, Lionel Fontagné and Sébastien Jean of Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS). 

In the run up to the Doha trade negotiations, this study, published in November 2005, looks at different methods which could be used in liberalising trade markets and analyses the probable effects of each.