thaliabayleAlmost a decade after the launch of the Doha Round under the World Trade Organization (WTO), the negotiations are mired in complex deadlock and most experts believe that there is little chance of a significant pact being salvaged by year’s end. That is the effective deadline for this ill-starred round of trade talks since next year is election year in the U.S., never propitious for global trade talks.

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Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was welcomed with open arms on a trip to three EU states on a four-day trip beginning on June 25 that involved visits to Hungary, Britain and – on a larger scale – Germany. The theme of his European swing was a “new chapter” in China’s relations with Europe, apparently signaling a change in the longstanding Chinese attitude of dismissing the EU as a significant international player.

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The E.coli epidemic in Germany has scared people across Europe: more than 30 are dead (more than in the nuclear accident in Japan) and up to 3,000 people are sick; restaurants have posted signs explaining that they are not serving vegetables (even tomatoes in sandwiches); consumers are frightened about eating fresh vegetables, even from organic growers; farmers and businesses have lost crops worth of hundreds of millions of euros and the health authorities face a mystery that they have been slow to solve.

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Christine Lagarde, France’s minister of finance, seems set to emerge as the leading candidate for the post of Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, succeeding Dominique Strauss-Kahn, himself a former French Finance Minister. Formal nominations for the post are due on Friday, June 10.

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The European Institute hosted a meeting on June 2, 2011 with The Honorable Eric Hirschhorn, U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security. In the ten months since Mr. Hirschhorn last spoke at The European Institute, notable progress has been made in the evolution of the Obama Administration’s Export Control initiative. Given the importance of this initiative for the economic and trade relationship that underpins European-American relations, Under Secretary Hirschhorn offered an update on the continuing evolution of export control reforms, and the prospects and challenges that lie ahead.