A strong condemnation was issued by the presidents of the European Council, Commission and Parliament on the imposition of restrictive measures against eight European Union officials, the EC announced in an April 30 press release. The condemnation came following Russia's move to ban European Parliament President David Sassoli, European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova and six EU member states' officials from entering the country in retaliation for sanctions placed on Russia. “This decision, which directly targets the European Union and its Member States, is unacceptable, devoid of any legal justification and baseless,” the joint statement in the release said. “It serves to underline that the Russian Federation has so far chosen the path of confrontation instead of seeking to reverse the negative trajectory of EU-Russia relations.”

The United Kingdom, fresh out of the European Union, conducted its fourth round of free trade agreement negotiations virtually with New Zealand April 12-27, the U.K.'s Department for International Trade announced in an April 30 news release. An outline of the whole agreement was provisionally agreed to, including chapters on Anti-Corruption and Women in Trade, the agency said. Significant progress was also made on the Disputes, Rules of Origin, Goods, Labor and Telecommunications, Digital, Consumer Protection and Environment provisions of the agreement.

Iceland plans to allocate $7.5 million to support the competitiveness of Icelandic sheep and cattle farmers and help mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service said April 27. Along with the funding, Iceland will revise its tariff quotas and review its customs agreement with the European Union to support its sheep and cattle industry. USDA said Iceland's financial support for its farmers “remains among the highest in the world.”

Syrian national Mazin Al-Tarazi, a Kuwait resident, will remain sanctioned by the European Union following an April 14 EU General Court decision dismissing his application to be removed from the list. The court found that while Al-Tarazi had raised a reasonable doubt as to his role in certain projects such as the construction of Marota City and investments in the construction and aviation industries, he is a “leading businessperson operating in Syria.” Al-Tarazi owns a luxury hotel in Syria and is licensed to operate a private airline, making him a prominent businessperson who “benefits from and/or supports the Syrian regime,” the court said.

Russia recently notified the World Trade Organization of planned revisions to certain Eurasian Economic Union phytosanitary requirements, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service reported April 28. The draft measures will add new requirements for “fungal spawn” and introduce changes to the EAEU’s phytosanitary regulations related to the use of electronic documents, USDA said. Public comments are due June 5.

The EU General Court vacated 2017 and 2020 acts from the European Council designating Aisha Gadhafi, the daughter of former Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi, for its sanctions regime, in an April 21 decision. Finding that the EU did not provide individual, specific and concrete reasons as to why she remained on the sanctions list, the court removed her name. The European Council relied on public statements from Gadhafi in 2011 and 2013 calling for the overthrow of the Libyan authorities, but the court found these statements unconvincing. Seeing as her circumstances have changed, the EC needed to show why the sentiments held in the statements still hold today, the court said.

The European Union officially adopted a trade agreement with the United Kingdom, the European Council announced in an April 29 news release. The deal governing zero tariff and zero quota policies for trade goes into effect May 1. While the agreement had been applied conditionally since the U.K.'s official exit from the bloc, the terms are now official following an overwhelming vote from the European Parliament. Concerns over the agreement's passage were raised after Parliament delayed the vote to protest the U.K.'s handling of the Northern Ireland border that saw a de facto hard border placed on the nation.

The European Court of Justice annulled a 2018 decision by the General Court of the European Union to delist the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) from the terror-related sanctions regime. In an April 22 opinion, the ECJ found that the lower court should have considered the evidence relating to why the European Council decided to continue listing the PKK as subject to sanctions. Determining that not all the evidence had been considered, the ECJ remanded the case to the lower court.

The United Kingdom and Australia agreed to the "vast majority of elements of a comprehensive free trade agreement," the UK's International Trade Minister Liz Truss announced in an April 23 statement. A full deal between the two parties is now expected in June, according to the statement. "We have made major breakthroughs over the past few days and an agreement is now in sight," Truss said. "We will spend the next few weeks ironing out details and resolving outstanding issues."

The European Union held its fourth negotiating round with five African nations to expand the existing Economic Partnership Agreement, the European Commission announced in an April 22 report on the negotiations. The participating nations are Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and Zimbabwe. The parties discussed seven primary issues: customs and trade facilitation; mutual administrative assistance protocol; sanitary and phytosanitary issues; rules of origin; trade and sustainable development; trade in services, investment liberalization, digital trade; and economic and development cooperation, the EC said. Both sides submitted detailed proposals for rules of origin and also discussed a joint text on trade and sustainable development for the first time, it said.