Insights

There is nothing new in British government ministers showing a basic lack of understanding of trade policy. The Brexit referendum and its aftermath have been characterised by ministers asserting ambitious free trade goals which are not deliverable in the real world. Now the opposition Labour party has followed suit with its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, setting out a new “Build…

This is the third quarterly issue of the Global Counsel Brexit dashboard. More than two years on from the vote – and with just six months before the UK leaves the EU – we are taking the macro pulse of the UK economy, using a balanced set of 15 indicators. We are not attempting to isolate the impact of Brexit from all the other factors affecting the economy, as that is…

US trade policy under Donald Trump has become volatile, noisy and aggressive. This makes it hard to follow policy developments, let alone to understand what is driving them. But the key to understanding the dispute with China is to recognise it is quite different from the disputes the US has provoked with other countries. In fact, it is not a conventional trade dispute at…

British retailer Dixons Carphone reported on Tuesday that ten million customers may have been affected by a cyber-attack. This is yet another example of the privacy breaches that are affecting every day operations of European companies. The Dixons Carphone incident follows other major cyber-attacks. The WannaCry and NotPetya attacks led to substantial financial losses for…

The Irish border has become a major obstacle in the Brexit negotiations. With time running short, the probability of a no-deal Brexit – and the chaos this would imply – is increasing. So what are the potential solutions?

This is an excerpt from Global Counsel's latest publication Europe in the Global Economy, which can be downloaded in full here.

This is an excerpt from Global Counsel's latest publication Europe in the Global Economy, which can be downloaded in full here.

This is an excerpt from Global Counsel's latest publication Europe in the Global Economy, which can be downloaded in full here. 

This is an excerpt from Global Counsel's latest publication Europe in the Global Economy, which can be downloaded in full here. 

The torrential downpour which greeted President Putin as he walked onto the turf at the Luzhniki Stadium as the final whistle brought the 21st World Cup to an end was the only cloud over a tournament graced with many footballing silver linings. His counterpart at FIFA, President Infantino, had declared before the final that the championship was “changing the perception of…

This is an excerpt from Global Counsel's latest publication Europe in the Global Economy, which can be downloaded in full here. 

This is an excerpt from Global Counsel's latest publication Europe in the Global Economy, which can be downloaded in full here. 

This is an excerpt from Global Counsel's latest publication Europe in the Global Economy, which can be downloaded in full here. 

US President Trump upped the ante in his trade dispute with China earlier this week by mandating his US Trade Representative to release a list of up to $200bn in Chinese goods on which a new 10% tariff would apply by the end of the summer. Whether this can bring change in Chinese trade practices, or at least force Beijing back to the negotiating table, remains…

A distinctive feature of President Juncker’s “political” European Commission was a single set of collective top-down priorities, rather than a stitching together of the agendas of individual commissioners. In 2014, this meant a focus on economic reforms to restore growth lost during the 2008 financial crisis: a digital single market, a capital markets union and an…

Back in 2016, with the Digital Single Market agenda still in its infancy, the European Commission launched its ambitious reform of telecoms regulation. The so-called European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) was presented with great fanfare and with the explicit goal of plugging Europe’s €155 billion investment gap in digital infrastructure. The ultimate aim of the…

The twenty-three men of the England World Cup squad in Russia have done more to restore respect for Britain abroad than any number of ministerial visits, soft power exchanges and cultural tours. The irony of this turnaround taking place in Russia, at a low-point in Anglo-Russia relations, something which the death of a British citizen yesterday linked to the nerve agent…

Over the next few months, the UK is likely to start setting out its detailed plans for the establishment of a UK trade remedies system after it has left the EU. Freed (at least in theory – watch the customs partnership debate) from the obligations of the EU system of which it has long been a critic, the UK will have an opportunity to adopt its own rulebook for the…