Past Events

ECIPE cordially invites you to the Third Jan Tumlir Honorary Lecture with Pascal Lamy, former Director General of the World Trade Organisation and EU Trade Commissioner.

Can national courts really substitute arbitrational tribunals in in investor-state disputes?

This seminar discusses where exactly countries are positioned within the GVC space and which policy measures are most important to explain each of these countries’ position on the GVC diagram.

Asian and European approaches to climate change differ. Can a new global climate change accord accommodate both?

Is the rise of mega-regionals a threat to Africa's capacity to grow through trade?

Is there a case to reform investment protection?

The regional economic architecture is rapidly evolving in the Asia-Pacific, shaped by a plethora of alphabet soup mega-plurilaterals of TPP, RCEP and FTAAP. The world outside Brussels is increasingly convinced that TPP in particular, and the Asia-Pacific region in general will be the new agenda-setting pillar, and the first ‘competing’ economic integration that is large enough to have a considerable negative impact on the EU.

The November election to the Congress brought the Republicans in control of both the Senate and the House. Trade press are ripe with opinions about how the election will change the politics of trade in the U.S. for the better – and that there should now be a forceful attempt by the Administration and the Congress to establish a new Trade Promotion Authority that allows the U.S. to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership to an end and revive the TTIP negotiations. At the same time, both parties are not far away from starting the nomination process for the 2016 presidential race – a process that will see both sides playing for the gallery of their parties. Given the charged relation between the Administration and the Republicans on a host of other issues, what are the chances that they are willing to take a pause from adversarial politics in order to get a deal on trade policy?

The direction of China’s economic and strategic policy will set the tone of the 21st century. And under President Xi, there has been a shift in tone – and in the country’s general aspiration to fashion an economic and strategic approach to its neighbours and the world.

The most globally significant bilateral trade and investment relationship is between the U.S. and the European Union. An increasing amount of this economic relationship is underpinned by cross-border flows of data.