Month: September 2017
No. The EU does NOT want to ban your chips
Recently, headlines in Germany and Austria might have made you shiver with fear: “The. EU. Wants. To. Ban. Crispy. Chips”. No less! The same EU which dictates the shape of our bananas and cucumbers [1] is now meddling with our...
Making ‘open trade’ and the global market work for EU consumers
“Open trade must go hand in hand with open policy making,” Jean-Claude Juncker said in his annual State of the Union speech last week. With this statement he kicked-off changes in the way the European Commission conducts trade negotiations. His...
What the fipronil egg crisis tells us about the pitfalls of open markets
Looking back at the summer of 2017, two things people will probably remember are the summer hit Despacito and the egg crisis. When it comes to the eggs the short version goes like this: In July, Belgian authorities alerted their...