Trade policy
Making the EU's digital regulatory reset count: Four recommendations
02 September 2025
The EU digital rulebook has grown rapidly in recent years, becoming cumbersome and sometimes hampering trade. The forthcoming digital regulatory package is an opportunity to simplify the rules.
In defence of a bad deal
07 August 2025
The EU-US deal will hurt their economies, raise tariffs and weaken the global legal order. But despite it all, the EU was right to accept.
In transatlantic trade talks, the EU must keep digital policy off the table
18 July 2025
The UK has shifted some of its digital policies to appease the US president. But Brussels should adjust its tech agenda to boost its own competitiveness – not to cave in to Donald Trump.
The case for using the Anti-Coercion Instrument against Russia
05 June 2025
The EU sanctions regime against Russia is threatened by a Hungarian veto. The Anti-Coercion Instrument would allow the EU to bypass Budapest.
A perfect storm: Britain's trade malaise, weak growth and a new geopolitical moment
21 May 2025
The UK is facing its most severe trade challenge in decades – and at the worst possible time.
On Europe, Labour should reconsider its 'red chains'
16 May 2025
Labour’s reset with the EU will fail to deliver a significant boost to economic growth. A fundamental refashioning of the EU-UK relationship would require Labour to think again about freedom of movement.
Trump's tariffs – how should the EU react?
26 February 2025
The ‘Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Plan’ proposed by Donald Trump sounds innocuous but is a roadmap towards an all-out global trade war. To avert one, Europe must act firmly and speedily.
Europe and the global economic order
22 January 2025
Geopolitical rivalries threaten the legal order on which European trade depends. To maintain its influence and secure its trade relations, the EU must maintain its openness and build alliances.
The UK can ride Trump out on trade
12 December 2024
The UK will probably face less trade disruption under Donald Trump than some fear – but will have fewer opportunities to improve ties with the US than some hope.
The EU's drive on China: What EV tariffs mean for Europe
31 October 2024
The EU has imposed fresh tariffs on Chinese EVs. It has good reason to worry about Chinese subsidies, but it is unclear that the tariffs are the right answer to Europe’s lagging competitiveness.
Surviving Trump 2.0: What does the US election mean for Europe's economy?
03 October 2024
While EU leaders fret about a second Trump presidency, they should not be complacent about Kamala Harris’s prospects. Neither president would fundamentally change the economic dilemmas facing Europe.
Should the UK pursue dynamic alignment with the EU?
04 July 2024
The EU’s neighbours follow various models of dynamic alignment with its rules. Which model, if any, could suit the UK?
Delivering the goods: An EU trade agenda for the next UK government
28 May 2024
The Labour Party’s red lines will restrict its ambitions for changing the EU-UK relationship, but if it forms a government it should push Brussels for concessions, particularly on trade in goods.
Can the EU hold back the great tech decoupling?
03 May 2024
The US wants Europe to adopt stronger limits on high-tech goods trade with China. In response, the EU should insist the US stick with de-risking, not decoupling, and demand greater transatlantic economic co-operation.
Living next door to an elephant: Lessons for the UK from EFTA
29 April 2024
After Brexit, the UK finds itself next door to a regional trade hegemon. Britain can draw useful lessons from the experience of the EFTA countries.
A new equilibrium in Northern Ireland: Can it last?
01 March 2024
The agreement between the British government and the Democratic Unionist Party addresses immediate challenges but falls short of resolving Northern Ireland’s Brexit conundrum.
Brexit, four years on: Answers to two trade paradoxes
25 January 2024
Since the UK left the EU in 2020, its goods exports to the EU have not performed any worse than to the rest of the world, and its services exports have grown strongly. How come?
Europe can withstand American and Chinese subsidies for green tech
12 June 2023
European policy-makers are fretting about subsidised green tech imports from the US and China. But shipping costs are increasingly discouraging imports of these goods from faraway countries.
The UK's competition authority is ready to regulate big tech
26 May 2023
The UK competition authority has decided Microsoft cannot acquire games company Activision. This should reassure politicians that the authority wants dynamic and competitive markets.
Bulletin issue 147 - December 2022/January 2023
01 December 2022
- Now is not the time for Ukraine to negotiate, Ian Bond
- How the pandemic strengthened the EU, Camino Mortera-Martinez
- The UK needs a chips strategy, Zach Meyers