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Valentin Zahrnt
Areas of expertise
- WTO Negotiations
- WTO & Civil Society
- Agricultural Policies
- Institutional Economics
- International Relations
Valentin Zahrnt is a Research Associate at ECIPE. He is also Director of Zahrnt Consulting & Communication, a service specialized in trade and sustainable development.
Holding a Ph.D. in international economics, his research interests are centered on two issues: the institutional functioning of the WTO (negotiations, trade policy reviews) and trade in food (WTO Agreement on Agriculture, CAP reform, sanitary and phytosanitary regulation).
Valentin Zahrnt has studied at the University of St. Gallen (HSG), the National University of Singapore, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Freiberg. Subsequently, he has conducted a post-graduate research project at the University of Geneva.
ECIPE Publications
- The WTO’s Trade Policy Review Mechanism: How to Create Political Will for Liberalization (ECIPE Working Paper No. 11/2009)
- Public Money for Public Goods: Winners and Losers from CAP Reform (ECIPE Working Paper No. 08/2009)
- Transparency of Complex Regulation: How Should WTO Trade Policy Reviews Deal with Sanitary and Phytosanitary Policies? (ECIPE Working Paper No. 06/2009)
- A Blueprint for Reform of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (ECIPE Working Paper No. 01/2009)
- Reforming the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy: Health Check, Budget Review, Doha Round (ECIPE Policy Brief No. 06/2008)
Other Books and Papers
- Agriculture-specific negotiations from an EU perspective (Paper for the conference on ‘Alternative Frameworks for Agricultural Trade Negotiations’, University of Adelaide, 11-12 December 2008 )
Speeches and Presentations
- How Should WTO Trade Policy Reviews Deal with SPS Policies? (Presentation at the WTO Public Forum in Geneva, 30 September 2009)
Articles, Opinion and Commentary
- Will reform bring a bumper harvest? (Valentin Zarhnt in European Voice.)
- Deutschlands vernachlässigtes Freihandelsinteresse (Article by Andreas Freytag and Valentin Zahrnt in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
- Save Money as you Save the Planet (Valentin Zahrnt in The Majallah)
- Protecting producers in the name of consumers (Valentin Zahrnt comments in EUobserver.)
- Greening the CAP, and pruning it too (It will soon be crunch-time for Europe's controversially expensive CAP. Valentin Zahrnt puts forward ideas for slimming the EU’s €50bn a year farm budget while making it environmentally attractive. Published in Europe's World.)
Media Coverage
- Agrarpolitik: Nettozahler Österreich (Valentin Zahrnt quoted in DiePresse.com)
- Even in Hard Times, EU Agricultural Subsidies Roll On (Valentin Zahrnt in Time.com)
- Valentin Zahrnt comments on CAP reform (Incoming EU Ag Commissioner Fields Questions on CAP, Doha)
- Europe’s Vast Farm Subsidies Face Challenges (Valentin Zahrnt in the New York Times)