EU Trade ExplorerEU Trade

FAQ

Explore EU trade data

Customs codes describe broad categories, not individual products or brands. These categories are defined precisely through their technical characteristics.

That is why there is no "Ferrari" or "red sports car" code, but "motor vehicles for under 10 persons", broken down by engine size. Likewise, no "Unleaded 95", but "motor spirit" broken down by lead content and octane rating.

More on this topic in the FAQ.

Browse the Combined Nomenclature

Prefer to explore? Open the full Combined Nomenclature tree — drill down chapter by chapter, from broad sections to the most detailed 8-digit codes, and click any line to load it straight into the dashboard.

What you can analyse

Pick a product and the dashboard unlocks five menus of views — every chart can be flipped to a data table and downloaded as Excel or PNG:

Overview

The big picture: totals, main partners, member-state breakdowns and maps.

  • Overview — headline import and export quantities, values, average prices and the trade balance.
  • Breakdown by trading partner — per-partner quantity, value and price series, ranked by volume or value.
  • Breakdown by EU member state — the same detail for each reporting EU country.
  • Geographic view of imports / exports — choropleth maps shading every country by trade volume or value over time.

Market structure

Who holds the power in this market? Trade dominance, specialisation and the real output behind it.

  • Trade concentration (HHI) — the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index showing how dependent trade is on a handful of partners or member states.
  • Geographic view of concentration — a map of how concentrated import and export flows are across countries.
  • Comparative advantage (trade) — the revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) of each EU member state, showing who specialises in the product relative to the EU average.
  • Production volumes and concentration — actual PRODCOM output and unit values, plus how concentrated that production is across reporting countries.

Cross-section (when comparing)

Drill into sub-products: appears once you select multiple codes, or a parent code that has children.

  • Compare products — several codes (or a parent split into its sub-products) plotted on shared charts.
  • Volatility by product — which sub-products swing the most.
  • Concentration compare — partner concentration (HHI) per sub-product, side by side.

Volatility & shocks

How stable is the trade? Normal fluctuation, sudden collapses, price shocks and pattern breaks.

  • Volatility — coefficient-of-variation of trade flows for each partner × product pair.
  • Sudden volume changes — detection of abnormal collapses in trade volumes, ranked by how statistically unusual they are.
  • Rapid price changes — detection of sudden price regime shifts relative to each flow's usual volatility.
  • Price & volume change summary — a before/after view around a chosen date, flagging demand-driven growth, supply constraints, oversupply risk and market contraction.

Strategic autonomy

How dependent is the EU on imports, and who controls production? Built on PRODCOM (DS-059358) production data combined with trade flows.

  • Net import reliance (NIR) — net imports as a share of apparent EU consumption (production + imports − exports).
  • Trade intensity — a sector's exposure to international trade ((imports + exports) ÷ (imports + production)), using the Commission's CEEAG carbon-leakage / State-aid methodology.
  • Export propensity — the share of EU output that is exported (exports ÷ production).
  • Evolution of sub-contracting intensity — how much EU output is toll (sub-contracted) manufacturing rather than own-account production, over time.
  • Geographical distribution of sub-contracting intensity — the same own-account vs. toll split mapped across reporting countries, revealing processing hubs.

Blog · FAQ · Xavier Gillard