The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, gave a speech on the state of Europe at the Berlin conference on Tuesday 9 November. In a section dedicated to the EU’s trade with the rest of the world, he regretted the slow pace of ratification of free trade agreements within the EU.
“The problem is one of form and one of substance”, he explained. On the form, “the confidentiality of these negotiations makes it increasingly difficult to explain their value to the public and...