To react to the global recession of the economy, the European Union has formally started its anti-crisis plan through the granting of a series of aids to the export for products such as butter, cheese, whole milk and skimmed milk powder.

In the Official Journal of the European Union L 49 of 20 February 2009 four new Regulations have been published, fixing, respectively:

• the amount of refunds to the export of milk and milf products (Commission Regulation (EC) n. 140/2009 of 19 February 2009);
• of the maximum export refund for butter (Commission Regulation (EC) n. 141/2009 of 19 February 2009);
• of the maximum export refund for skimmed milk powder (Commission Regulation (EC) n. 142/2009 of 19 February 2009);
• of the refunds applicable to milk and milk products exported in the form of goods not covered by Annex I to the Treaty(Commission Regulation (EC) n. 144/2009 of 19 February 2009).

(continues ... in Italian)

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The US Congress has recently passed a law, named “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”, (so-called “Stimulus Bill”), that introduces a huge tax intervention based on a mix of public expenditure and tax reduction measures for a total spending of $ 787 billions. Section 1605 of this law sets a particular tie to the use of these funds, that can be used only for projects of construction, alteration, maintenance, or repair of a public building or for other public works, where iron, steel, and manufactured goods exclusively produced in the United States are used. There are anyway some limited exceptions to this rule, such as in cases where its application is inconsistent with the public interest; or where iron, steel, and the relevant manufactured goods are not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available quantities and are of a satisfactory quality; or in the case where the use of iron, steel, and manufactured goods produced in the United States would increase the cost of the overall project by more than 25 percent.

This provision has proven to be controversial also in the US, where many companies fear that their trading partners abroad will retaliate with similar “buy domestic” provisions, so thwarting their investiments in Europe and Asia. To avoid this effect, Section 1605 introduces to the subsection d) a "safeguard" clause establishing that the "buy american" provisions shall be applied in a manner consistent with U.S. international trade obligations.