EU Trade Relations with North America and Asia: Focus on USA and China

You are cordially invited to the second LSE ITPU/ECIPE seminar on EU trade policy. This time we examine key EU bilateral trade relationships – west across the Atlantic and east to Asia-Pacific. Our focus is EU-USA and EU-China trade relations. Looking west, the EU is negotiating a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada and has a regulatory-cooperation framework, the Transatlantic Economic Council, with the USA. But the latter has made no progress; rather it has been mired in petty regulatory squabbles over minor commercial matters. Is it time to think bigger? Perhaps to launch a new Transatlantic FTA initiative? What might be the economic costs and benefits? What about political feasibility? How could TAFTA be done? Looking to Asia, the EU-China relationship faces rising commercial tensions, but existing bilateral mechanisms are poorly equipped to deal with them. What can be done? What are the prospects for EU FTA negotiations with India and ASEAN countries? What next with the already negotiated EU-Korea FTA? Are there new FTAs in prospect, e.g. with Japan, Taiwan and Australia?

The following two panels will address these issues.

Program

14:15-14:30
Welcome Remarks
Dr. Stephen Woolcock and Mr. Fredrik Erixon

14:30-16:00
Panel One: Transatlantic Trade Relations – Time for TAFTA?
Panel: Mr. Fredrik Erixon, Co-Director, ECIPE
Mr. Gary Campkin, Director for International Affairs, Confederation of British Industries (TBC)
Professor Jim Rollo, Sussex University

16:00- 16:15
Break

16:15-17:45

Panel Two: EU-Asia Trade Relations – EU-China and EU-Asia FTAs
Panel: Mr. Guy de Jonquières, Senior Fellow, ECIPE
Mr. Andrew Halper, Partner and Head of China Business Group, CMS Cameron McKenna LLP
Dr. Razeen Sally, Co-Director, ECIPE

17:45-17:50
Concluding Remarks

Limited Seats Available: RSVP with itpu@lse.ac.uk

The European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) is an independent and non-profit policy research think tank dedicated to trade policy and other international economic policy issues of importance to Europe. Launched in 2006, ECIPE has quickly established itself as one of the leading European policy-research institutes in the fields of the world economy.

The International Trade Policy Unit (ITPU) aims to provide a link between academic research on trade and trade related topics with the practice of trade policy and international trade and investment. The ITPU does so by providing a forum for discussion of trade topics, conducts research and runs training and capacity building programmes.