The EU and Japan this week met for the first time as part of a new supply chain working group to discuss economic security issues. The EU said the forum will allow the two sides to ensure a "level playing field by regulating state intervention in support to industrial sectors," swap “trade strategies” and talk about efforts to diversify supply chains. The European Commission said the new working group is “especially relevant” to the bloc’s recently published economic security strategy see (see 2306200052 and 2401240078), adding that it wants to partner with allies such as Japan on “anti-coercion instruments, export controls and investment screening.”

The U.S. and the EU held the fifth meeting of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council in Washington on Jan. 30, where the two sides again committed to increasing trade and cooperating on economic security and emerging technology issues, according to a European Commission readout of the meeting. The commission said the EU and the U.S. agreed to “explore ways to facilitate trade in goods and technologies that are vital for the green transition” and strengthen approaches to investment screening, export controls, outbound investment and “dual-use innovation.”

The European Council on Jan. 29 added four people and one entity to its global human rights sanctions regime and renewed its Russia-related sanctions regime for another six months.

The European Council on Jan. 26 adopted a negotiating mandate on the proposed regulation barring goods made with forced labor from the EU market, the council announced. The mandate included a host of changes to the regulation, including a clarification that the measure's scope would include "products offered for distance sales," the creation of a single forced labor portal and a stronger role for the European Commission in investigating the use of forced labor.

The European Commission last week officially launched a public comment period as it considers potential restrictions on outbound investments. Comments are due April 27, after which the commission plans to monitor past and current EU outward investments and “carry out an assessment of risks linked to such monitored transactions.” Potential screening rules could initially focus on outbound investments in a narrow set of technologies, including artificial intelligence, advanced semiconductors, quantum and biotech, the EU said (see 2401240078).

The European Commission on Jan. 25 issued new guidelines for how member states and the commission collect and share export licensing data as the EU prepares its annual export control report (see 2301270011). The new rules “for the first time” state that the annual report “should include relevant information on the licensing and enforcement” of export controls, the guidelines said, “with due respect to the need to ensure the protection of the confidentiality of certain data.”

The Netherlands' Rotterdam District Court on Jan. 15 sustained the Dutch National Bank's sanctions on an unnamed financial services provider, according to an unofficial translation. The court held that the bank "rightly" found that from July 2015 to March 2018, the financial services provider "systematically failed to comply with several core obligations" by "hardly conducting any customer due diligence" and failing to carry out any sanctions screening.

Members of the European Parliament last week called on the bloc to sanction officials in China and Sudan for human rights violations.

The European Council on Jan. 22 added six entities to its Sudan sanctions list and six people and five entities to its Syria sanctions list.

The European Council on Jan. 22 created a new sanctions framework targeting Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. The bloc also sanctioned six people under the new regime, including various Hamas financiers and a senior Hamas “operative.”