TradeLane

The EU and Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay) agreed recently on a draft-free trade agreement that, if implemented, will create the largest free trade area in the world, connecting over 770 million people. The free trade agreement has been agreed in principle and will now move to legal revision. This will lead to a final text of the agreement being sent to the member states of both blocs for approval.

A change in Prime Minister in the UK on July 24th has renewed focus on Brexit and its impacts across the Eurozone. Currently, the UK is set to leave the European Union (EU) on October 31st, with or without a deal. Given that the current withdrawal agreement between the EU and the UK has been voted down three times by the UK parliament, and due to the renewed political prioritization of no-deal planning by the current government, trade compliance professionals are building their Brexit plans with the assumption of no deal.  

In October 2018, France signed law 2018-898 in order to strengthen the fight against tax evasion and customs fraud.  Following this, the Judicial Investigations Department of Finance (SJEF) was created on July 1^st.

March and April were stressful for EU-based Trade Compliance professionals. The threat of a looming no-deal Brexit caused many of us to spend countless hours watching the news, waiting for concrete feedback on the future state of the UK-EU trading relationship.