Four years after the launch of Global Europe - the European Union's trade strategy from 2006 - policymakers are now confronted with the first negotiated agreement with one of the rising economic powers in the Far East. The EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement (hereafter EUKOR) is the first of Europe's...

A new trade war is looming as the EU is now embarking on its first countervailing duty (CVD) against Chinese subsidies over coated fine paper. As the EU gives a significant amount of subsidies to local production, China is not short of sectors to retaliate against - especially as the evidence in...

The crisis-struck EU finds it increasingly difficult to engage in trade negotiations with large-sized economies that would have a meaningful impact on growth. Some parts of the European car industry are opposing a FTA with Japan due to defensive interests following the crisis in EU car...

Services liberalisation has perhaps suffered from the deadlock of the WTO more than any other area of trade. As the discussions of a potential plurilateral agreement amongst a select group of countries continue, more questions are raised than answered. In a new policy brief by Hosuk...

EU-China relations look set to grow increasingly charged in the next few years. Both sides will go through political transitions. We are on the doorstep of an era of political navel gazing that will limit their capacity to fashion a new and much needed cooperative approach towards each other....

In this new policy brief Ambassador Dr Nelson describes a changing world order in which the Asia Pacific will come to play an even more influential role - economic activity will continue to grow as already five of the world's economic power houses - the US, China, India, Japan and Korea - are in...

This paper concerns Europe's ability to continue its trade strategy into large scale FTAs that are necessary to sustain EU industrial capacities. The first challenge for Europe is the EU- Japan FTA, whose merits have been met with scepticism due to Japan's lack of openness. Such notions are...

Following an FTA with Korea, the EU now takes up the ambitious task of negotiating an FTA with Japan. Inarguably, "big" FTAs are the way forward in the search for growth, but in parallel, the EU should aim to diversify its regional outreach to rebalance trade accounts. In this sense, Taiwan has...

Given the unsatisfactory deployment of fibre based Next Generation Access (NGAs) networks in the EU, the European Commission proposes in a draft recommendation from December 2012 that wholesale prices for access to the copper networks should be between €8-10. This means that the former...

The European Parliament hearings on the Commission's proposal for a "Regulation establishing rules on the access of third countries' goods and services to the EU internal market in public procurement" offers an opportunity to review two key pillars of the proposal. First, the Directive...