Next steps for Europe-India trade

Long-term talk of deeper Europe-India trade ties is finally accelerating as the mutual value becomes more obvious. This results from common struggles with superpowers US and China, as well as the recognition that the world’s most populous country needs help with its growth and Europe wants to be part of that story. Nonetheless, UK and EU Free Trade Agreements with India are best seen as part of an ongoing process rather than the final outcome. These FTAs are shallow, and there are numerous headwinds such as very different views of the world. This means all governments concerned will need to work hard to see significant economic benefits. The UK-India FTA is expected to come into force this year, with the EU-India equivalent probably at least a year behind. In both cases, their conclusion is still ahead of hopes, since negotiations only really began in 2022, even if building on previously suspended efforts. For India, the economic slowdown during COVID-19 provided an impetus. For the EU and the UK, a large Indian market behind tariff walls was incentive enough. However, it was the turbulence of Trump’s tariffs that provided the extra push to the conclusion. Details of the EU-India FTA are [...]

By , |2026-03-06T15:08:57+00:006 March 2026|Blog, International Trade|0 Comments
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Free Trade with MERCOSUR: An attractive opportunity for the UK?

After a negotiation process characterised by long periods of stagnations and disagreements[1], on the 17th of January, a Partnership Agreement was signed between the European Union and the four founding members of the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR, as known in Spanish): Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay[2]. This free trade agreement is meant to eliminate tariffs on 91% of EU exports to the South American bloc. This will be done over a 15-year phase-in period, paired with the removal of duties on 92% of MERCOSUR goods sold to the EU, within a 10-year timeframe. There is uncertainty regarding the ratification and implementation of this deal, due to a recent decision by the European Parliament to refer the agreement to the EU Court of Justice. Nevertheless, the economic size of the parties involved (estimated at 18% of the world’s GDP), along with the current context in which traditional large trading partners are becoming less reliable, has generated global interest. Such deal could constitute an example for other economies seeking to secure free trade with like-minded partners. It would allow them to diversify their trade portfolio and diminish their dependence on potentially problematic counterparts. If the deal goes ahead, EU exporters will secure [...]

By |2026-03-03T15:21:34+00:003 March 2026|Blog, International Trade, UK - Non EU|0 Comments
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Making trade work for development: Early signs suggest UK’s new trade scheme is working

In the global debate about tariffs, one thing is clear: trade can be critical to making economies grow and societies more resilient. As part of its commitment to international development, the United Kingdom introduced the Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) in 2023 to make it easier and cheaper for developing countries to export to the UK. The objective is to stimulate trade from beneficiary countries, promote growth, support economic transformation and help reduce poverty. Now, after two years, the UK government has commissioned independent research to determine if the new trading scheme is indeed encouraging more trade and how it can benefit people in developing countries. Positive early findings The research by the UK’s new Trade and Development, Evidence and Innovation Programme (E&I) has found early, positive signs that the DCTS is succeeding in encouraging developing countries to make greater use of trade preferences. Through the DCTS, which is offered unilaterally by the UK, 65 developing countries can benefit from lower tariffs than countries that are outside the scheme and cannot use other UK trade agreements. So the DCTS can make the goods imported from member countries more competitive. But lower tariffs (or trade preferences) are subject to conditions, which [...]

By , |2026-03-03T10:47:13+00:0027 February 2026|Blog, Trade and Development, Evidence & Innovation Programme (E&I).|0 Comments
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Alignment with limits and safeguards: EFRA’s key recommendations for a UK-EU SPS Agreement

The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) has recently published a report responding to the political commitment made at the May 2025 UK–EU Summit to negotiate a common sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) area, with an ambition to conclude negotiations by early 2027. Entitled ‘UK–EU agritrade: making an SPS agreement work’, the report sets out recommendations aimed at ensuring that any future SPS framework is economically beneficial, constitutionally accountable and operationally workable. At its core, the report accepts the economic case for closer regulatory cooperation with the European Union. It recognises the potential benefits of reducing border friction, supporting supply chain resilience and strengthening food security. However, it does not endorse alignment without qualification. Rather, the Committee advances what might be described as an approach of alignment, with limits and safeguards: supporting the negotiation of a common SPS area while seeking targeted exemptions in sensitive areas; calling for robust parliamentary oversight; and insisting on mechanisms to ensure that UK scientific evidence and domestic policy choices are properly reflected in future regulatory developments. Crucially, as a precondition for achieving these safeguards, the Committee urges that the scope of the negotiations is clearly defined and published at an early [...]

By |2026-02-20T17:06:11+00:0020 February 2026|Blog, UK- EU|0 Comments
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A beginner’s guide to economic security: What it means for trade

The return of President Trump to the White House has brought renewed attention to the relationship between trade and national security. This situation raises questions about how governments should respond to increasing pressure to protect economic security while upholding an open and rules-based trading system. What is economic security? The concept of economic security has evolved over the years, reflecting shifting global and domestic circumstances since the end of World War II. Different governments frame economic security risks and threats in various ways, which means there is no universally accepted definition. However, in terms of values, it broadly refers to the absence of a threat of severe deprivation of economic welfare. Rather than providing a single, rigid definition, the EU and Japan have adopted a principle-based approach. This allows them to remain responsive to the risks generated by a rapidly evolving economic, technological, and geopolitical landscape. For example, Japan has established three core principles of economic security: self-sufficiency, indispensability, and safeguarding the rules-based international system. In terms of the instruments, it refers to a nation’s framework to maintain national autonomy and economic resilience against risks and threats. This includes strategies and policies that aim to protect fundamental economic functions, strategic [...]

By |2026-01-07T08:57:01+00:007 January 2026|Blog, International Trade|0 Comments
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A critical look at the UK’s Critical Minerals Strategy

The UK has now released its new Critical Minerals Strategy which outlines the prospective domestic and international policy actions that the UK Government will take, or will consider, in its pursuit of critical minerals security. By doing so, the UK joins a host of regions (the United States, EU, Canada, Australia, Japan, African countries) that have emphasised the central role of critical minerals in their trade policies, foreign policies, and green industrial strategies. These regions also published their respective strategic approaches to critical minerals recently. There is a powerful narrative in developed economies regarding the indispensability of critical minerals for national and economic security, seeking to strengthen supply chains and make them more resilient by reducing ‘import dependence’ imports and diversifying international sourcing. Concern over  Chinese, near-monopolistic involvement in critical minerals supply chains, which could be weaponised, provides the main geopolitical context for most of these actions. At the same time, mineral-rich countries, which range from those in the developing world (including African and Southeast Asian countries) to Australia and Canada, are looking to leverage their mineral wealth to secure their own mineral-led industrial futures while exploring the right policy mix to attract investments and provide secure partnerships to access-seeking [...]

By , |2025-12-09T11:47:28+00:009 December 2025|Blog, International Trade, UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments
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How to deliver a UK-EU “re-set” that works

Debates about deepening UK-EU relations, including in the current ‘re-set’ negotiations,  often focus on what will the UK gain versus what it must concede.  Yet, what constitutes a win or a loss for the UK is complex – and if Brexit has taught us anything, it’s that people have diverse, and sometimes polarized, views. This is why an effective re-set of UK-EU relations requires thinking about an aspect of negotiations that is often overlooked, or viewed as a technical consideration: how the UK implements the re-set domestically. More specifically, the UK needs to address the democratic deficit in UK treaty-making, and establish bespoke arrangements on EU regulatory alignment, now and in the future. The surest way to future-proof a closer relationship with the EU is to create a sense that the UK public, and particularly those affected by regulation, have a say in this decision. The importance of domestic implementation Despite its renowned tradition of direct democracy, Switzerland aligns its regulations with the EU across numerous sectors. For example, it recently concluded an EU-Swiss Common Food Safety Area, in which it agreed to align with EU food law across a wide range of areas. At first glance, this decision may [...]

By |2026-01-07T14:56:29+00:0026 November 2025|Blog, International Trade, UK- EU|0 Comments
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The UK-US ‘geopolitical’ deal: A dangerous precedent for the UK and the world

We are living in a geopolitical world. While states may cloak their actions in legal justifications or economic reasoning, trade has become a tool to assert power, control narratives, and forge alliances. Trade deals are being designed to reduce vulnerabilities, not barriers. The recently announced US-UK deal is not a traditional trade agreement but a ‘geopolitical’ deal strongly reflecting the US’s geopolitical rivalry against China. Lacking the legally binding nature of international agreements, the deal sidesteps legal frameworks and instead stakes its importance on strategic alignment. As such, it signals a broader shift in how the US, which has its global leadership threatened by the rise of China as a superpower, now uses trade policy: not as a matter of market efficiency or legal commitments, but as an instrument of geopolitical influence and national security. Furthermore, the deal clearly shows the second Trump administration’s strong intention to force trade partners to collude with the US to squeeze China from global supply chains. Securitising supply chains At face value, the deal includes a few economic concessions, conditional on fulfilling security-related requirements. For example, the US has agreed to reduce tariffs on British steel, aluminium, and automobiles. In return, the UK will [...]

By , |2025-05-14T09:49:44+01:0014 May 2025|Blog, International Trade, UK - Non EU|0 Comments
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Stroking a bear to get half a sandwich

The UK and the US announced the first bilateral post-Reciprocal Tariffs deal on 8 May, named the 'U.S.-UK Economic Prosperity Deal' (henceforth the US-UK EPD). The document published yesterday draws out the contours of this EPD, alongside some concrete initial proposals for reciprocal preferential market access for selected goods. Notwithstanding the negotiations starting immediately, this arrangement can be called off at any time, simply by the two parties giving each other written notice. Besides its symbolic and diplomatic relevance, what is the value of this emerging deal for the UK? This is not a Free Trade Agreement. At first glance, it looks like a quid-pro-quo “mini-deal” of limited economic relevance that the US strong-armed the UK into accepting under the threat of tariffs. The UK is getting some respite from Trump’s tariffs in the (important) car and the (strategic) steel and aluminium sectors, in exchange for lowering tariffs on some agricultural products such as ethanol and beef, the latter on a reciprocal basis. But a closer reading of the ‘General Terms document’ suggests that it is more than this, and a lot worse. First, as stated on page 1 of the text, the arrangement that the US and the UK [...]

By , , , , |2025-05-09T18:57:18+01:009 May 2025|Blog, International Trade|0 Comments
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Do labour and environmental provisions in trade agreements lead to better social and environmental outcomes in practice?

13 December 2023 James Harrison is Professor in the School of Law at the University of Warwick. Emily Lydgate is Professor in Environmental Law at the University of Sussex and Deputy Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO).  Ioannis Papadakis is a researcher at the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP) and a Research Fellow in Economics. Sunayana Sasmal currently serves as a Research Fellow in International Trade Law at the UKTPO. Mattia di Ubaldo is Fellow of the UKTPO and Research Fellow in Economics of European Trade Policies. L. Alan Winters is Founding Director of the UKTPO,  Co-Director of the CITP and Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex. In answering this important question, different disciplinary approaches have emerged as have a range of different and sometimes contradictory findings. At the moment, scholars from the different disciplines are not talking to each other about the implications of this. The authors of this blog suggest it is vitally important that they begin to do so.   Trade agreements around the world increasingly include environmental and labour provisions. Their presence attests to policymakers’ recognition that trade agreements cannot simply focus on economic issues. They should also address environmental and social [...]

By , , , , |2025-01-15T12:35:09+00:0013 December 2023|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|3 Comments
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