The focus of the paper is on the developments so far and the future of the negotiations on agriculture in the WTO Doha Development Agenda round from the perspective of the European Union. The first part of the paper discusses what happened in the two parallel processes, the domestic agricultural...

The paper analyzes the changes in agricultural trade patterns in Slovakia that occured during the gradual trade liberalization due to European Union enlargement in 2004. The results indicate that approximately 30% of the increase in agricultural imports from the EU15 and CEECs between 2000 and...

The EU Common Market Organization for bananas has been generating international controversies since its introduction in 1992. Many thought the 'banana war' had come to an end when, at the 2001 WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, a Decision was taken for the EU to introduce, no later than 1...

The paper examines the economic implications of Bulgaria and Romania recent accession to the EU. The analysis has been carried out by using the GTAP model and database. In a first attempt, the effects of the removal of formal trade barriers and the adoption of common external tariffs are...

The main objective of the paper is related to the long standing issue of the econometric estimation of price elasticity of food trade functions. We investigate the relevance of the prominent gravity approach. This approach is based on the assumptions of symmetric, monotone, homothetic, CES...

Tariff rate quotas (TRQs) were introduced and legitimised as a market access instrument in the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA). TRQs combine both restrictions on imports, as well as safeguarding current or preferential agricultural trade flows. When market access is restricted by a...

The paper provides an analysis of the structure and the importance of SPS and TBT measures in agricultural trade and tries to identify the division between genuine protection of consumers, flora and fauna and non tariff barriers. The paper covers all notifying countries and products at the HS6...

Using specific estimation of ad-valorem equivalents, the paper compares sectors where observed trade flows are significantly lower than predicted flows, with sectors where a SPS/TBT measure is notified in the TRAINS database. Only three sectors are found where a significant negative coefficient...

This paper deals with the EU's trade policy with two objectives: on the one hand, we study the performance of EU's preferential agreements in granting their partners improved market access; on the other hand, we assess the extent to which domestic sectors are effectively protected. As far as the...