Meeting up with Phil Hogan in Dublin in recent days, there was clearly an awareness of the importance and challenges his new portfolio of EU Trade Commissioner carried, not least because of the tense time in Brexit negotiations, but also because of the instability and tension in global trade.

The European Commission's president-elect, Ursula von der Leyen, announced Mr Hogan's new role in a speech this morning.

Phil Hogan looks set to be nominated in the coming days to take over the powerful role of EU Trade Commissioner.

The publication of the Government’s Climate Action Plan comes at the same time as the EU Commission is pushing hard to complete a South American trade deal.

Farmers and Government authorities are collectively pushing the EU Council to take time to fully analyse the implications for agri-food producers before ratifying any Mercosur deal.

EU farmers opposed this week’s EU move to raise an offer on beef imports to 99,000 tonnes at low import tax rates, in trade talks with the Mercosur trade bloc.

Jobs Minister Richard Bruton urged the European Commission to bring negotiations over a contentious transatlantic trade deal to “a rapid conclusion” and said he hoped an equivalent Chinese deal could also be struck.

Ireland’s “victory” of ensuring every country had its own commissioner could be scuppered in November when the new body is put together. Instead there could be super-commissioners, and not-so-super-commissioners clustered around them.

Air pollution at dangerous levels

Financial services have loomed as the first serious stumbling block ahead of the second round of negotiations on a EU-US free trade agreement.

The European Union is considering trade action against Bangladesh, which has preferential access to EU markets for its garments, in order to pressure Dhaka to improve safety standards after a building collapse killed hundreds of factory workers.

The EU has asked Russian authorities to lift their ban on an annual €75m export trade in live pigs, cattle, sheep, and goats from the EU.

IRELAND received more support than it expected when it flagged the dangers of a trade agreement with Mercosur that does not take sufficient account of the needs of agriculture.

THE EU is battling to find a way to help Pakistan deal with the humanitarian disaster following the devastating floods last month.

THE Government’s “serious concerns” about the possible impact that a trade agreement with the Mercosur group of South American countries might have on the Irish beef sector have been conveyed to the European Commission.

The European Commission will look into Nicolas Sarkozy’s subsidies for Renault car production in France to ensure they do not amount to a protectionist distortion of the single market, Britain's Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton confirmed today.

Europe's new Trade Commissioner, Cathy Ashton, arrived in Geneva tonight for talks with the head of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy.

Europe’s diplomatic shuttle moves to Washington this weekend in a bid to calm financial world markets.

Europe’s diplomatic shuttle moves to Washington this weekend in a bid to calm financial world markets.

THE European Anti-Fraud Office has opened an investigation into a senior commission official accused of passing on secret commercial information in return for a promise of money when he retired.

THE grain, milk and beef price rises of the past year could have been the worst ever bit of good news farmers got.

The collapse of world trade talks in Geneva has been bitterly condemned by EU trade negotiator Peter Mandelson as “a burial”.

The European Union will not be the “sole banker” of a world trade deal, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned this afternoon.

France launches its presidency of the European Union tomorrow with a fanfare in Paris and a grudging pledge to mediate in the crisis over Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty.

Independent MEP Kathy Sinnott today pledged to ‘grill’ Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson when she met him to discuss the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks.

THE latest proposals from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are even worse for Irish agriculture than the previous ones, according to the Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin.

THE EU Commission will today unveil a proposed shake-up of the Common Agriculture Policy.

A DECISION by the US House of Representatives to pass a Farm Bill, worth $307 billion (€198bn) over the next five years, is a strong statement that US policymakers are putting their country’s interests first, the Irish Farmers Association said yesterday.

THE new Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Brendan Smith, will hit the ground running as his French counterpart Michel Barnier flies into Dublin today for key strategy talks on the world trade deal now being negotiated in Geneva.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has accused the Irish Farmers’ Association of getting its facts wrong, but IFA President Padraig Walshe said he stood over its statements.

OPINION polls show farmers trading Lisbon Treaty support for a favourable outcome to negotiations on world trade in agriculture.

YOUR columnist Steven King (April 30) appears to dismiss the agricultural sector of the economy as a has-been industry being fast-tracked to inevitable decline by the WTO negotiations.

THE two-faced tactics of the ‘No to Lisbon’ campaign became clear to me recently when I saw a Libertas campaign billboard which featured a picture of Bertie Ahern and EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, and boomed, ‘Say No to Mandelson’s Europe’.

THE prospects of a world trade deal being agreed this year have been dealt a serious blow, with Germany moving to back the positions adopted by France and Ireland in defending the interests of European farmers.

Europe’s farmers could respond to international food shortages and soaring prices if they were unshackled from the Common Agricultural Policy, a British MEP said today.

THE former president of the Irish Farmers Association John Dillon walked out of a European Union sub-committee meeting in Brussels yesterday in protest at what he claimed was the sell-out of agriculture in the world trade talks.

VITAL Irish economic interests are in imminent danger at the world trade talks, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association warned yesterday.

BRAZILIAN beef will be banned from being sold in the EU from today because of concerns about its safety.

EUROPE’S online gambling companies are pressing the EU to insist the US changes its laws to allow them operate there or demand $100 billion (€70bn) in compensation.

THE Irish Farmers’ Association claimed yesterday that a mission to Brazil in which it took part has produced evidence which proves there is a total lack of effective controls and standards in that country’s beef sector.

THE livelihoods of millions of European farmers are at stake, co-op and farm leaders have warned.

EUROPEAN farmers will not be offered up as a sacrifice to get the right overall result in the world trade talks.

REPORTED comments by Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson that the European Union is willing to give more ground over farm tariff cuts in the resuming world trade talks were sharply criticised by Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan in Brussels yesterday.

MAYBE the unusually mild winter in Brussels explains the European Commission’s new obsession with global warming.