Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA) spoke out in favour of closer ties with the United States on Tuesday 25 May during an exchange of views on a draft opinion on the future of EU-US relations.
Most MEPs were enthusiastic about the future transatlantic relationship. They are particularly interested in the issue of standardisation and cooperation on new technologies.
Many welcomed the proposal made by the European Commission and the Council of the EU on 2 December to establish an EU-US Trade and Technology Council (see EUROPE 12614/4).
“We should establish this proposal of trade and tech council and coordinate our approach to critical technologies and innovation”, said INTA committee chair and rapporteur on the opinion, Bernd Lange (S&D, Germany).
While Mr Lange and some of his colleagues are confident that the US will soon respond to the EU’s various proposals, others reportedly hoped for a quicker return. “I am getting impatient in getting concrete wins. I hope we’ll see something concrete soon”, said Anna-Michelle Assimakopoulou (EPP, Greece).
In mid-May, the EU announced that it would not apply its automatic tariff increase on a range of US products on 1 June (see EUROPE 12720/14).
The Head of Unit for the Americas and Agriculture and Food Safety in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade (DG TRADE), Rupert Schlegelmilch, tried to shed some light on the issue for MEPs. “[The Americans] are reaching out, not necessarily with very concrete ideas yet. [...] It takes a while to come up with concrete initiatives. We hope the summit will enable us to be a bit more forward leaning”, he said.
On 14 June, US President Joe Biden is expected to visit Brussels for an EU-US summit. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)