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The WTO in the Age of Trump’s Trade Bullying – Should There Be WTO Reform?
Something doesn’t add up. In Geneva, countries continue to profess undying commitment to the WTO. Meanwhile, their governments back home scramble for deals with Washington – deals which undermine...
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Modern Globalisation and the Nation State – The Evolving International Political Economy
Unresolved political economy contradictions are becoming more evident – between a national manufacturing narrative versus actual technology-led globalisation, balancing open trade versus...
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How to Kill a Bad Idea and Spread the Good Ones: An Iterative Public Policy Method for EU Policymakers
For centuries, Europe has been politically fragmented. Counterintuitively, this fragmentation was a blessing, not a curse. The reason was that, unlike other absolute monarchs, such as Chinese...
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From US Courtrooms to EU Capitals: The Cautionary Tale of Mass Litigation
Important policy shifts are sometimes buried deep in the weeds of academic and technocratic reports. Just some weeks ago, the European Commission published a new study of Third Party Litigation...
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Six Months into the Second von der Leyen Commission – Where are the Policies for Long-Run Economic Growth?
There are different ways to think about the economy. Economic reality will routinely present any policymaker with challenges that require actions in the short term: crises that motivate cyclical...
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What Next for the UK-EU Trade Relationship?
On May 19 the UK and EU started a new phase in their turbulent history. By agreeing a future program of work including negotiating alignment on food and drink regulations (SPS) and emissions trading...
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Globalisation Is Winning – And Other Trade Trends in the Age of Trump
Trade talk has gone mainstream as a result of President Trump’s actions. On top of reporting costs and uncertainty to business this has meant numerous bold statements like the world never being the...
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Trade Retaliation – An Answer Waiting for Its Question
A question that is haunting the EU and other key trading partners of the United States is whether they should retaliate against Trump’s tariff assault. So far, the EU’s response to the Trump...
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Justice Must Not Be for Sale: The Case of Mass Litigation
This blog post is based on an article published in El País on the 13th of April 2025. The original article can be found here. Julia Roberts won an Oscar for her leading role in Erin Brockovich,...
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Ten Days After Trump’s Trade Assault: US Staring into the Abyss
“There are weeks when decades happen”, Lenin famously said. The first two weeks of April this year have been such an event: major foundations of the global economic order have been shaken. The...