The EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) will meet for the second time in Paris on 15-16 May. The EU will be represented by European Commissioners Margrethe Vestager, Valdis Dombrovskis and Thierry Breton. On the US side, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo will travel to the event. The first meeting of this TTC was held in September 2021 in Pittsburgh (see EUROPE 12801/20).
On Thursday 12 May, the two sides agreed on a draft joint statement for the outcome of the meeting, a European official told EUROPE. This text has been slightly adjusted from an earlier version proposed by the European Commission (see EUROPE 12942/9). EUROPE has also had access to this new version.
Some passages have been adapted, notably on the efforts to be made on transatlantic trade. EU-US relations are still marked by disputes, even if most of these have been temporarily resolved since the election of US President Joe Biden. Thus, the two sides are expected to discuss “the need to resolve trade disagreements to our mutual advantage, reduce unnecessary barriers to bilateral trade and investment, and strive to prevent new ones from emerging”. In contrast, the commitment to strive not to take unilateral action against each other has disappeared.
Similarly, the notion of national security was addressed differently in the latest draft declaration. Both sides now recognise the importance of exchanging information on their respective approaches to shared or individual national security risks (see EUROPE 12942/9).
According to a European source, it was also a question of finding wording that would not pose a legal problem for the US, which still applies the Section 232 measures imposed by Donald Trump, which mention the national security risk of certain imports.
The draft joint declaration is broadly in line with the objectives presented at the launch of the TTC, with one major difference: the declaration will include, in the first place, paragraphs on Russia. In particular, the two sides will commit to continuing to coordinate actions taken to limit the negative impacts of Russian aggression.
Various TTC projects are influenced by the current context and Russian behaviour. For example, the EU and the US condemn the Russian government’s actions to restrict access to the Internet, censor content and intimidate the media.
Combating non-market practices
The EU and the US want to continue “to oppose actors who threaten the multilateral rules-based order and the fundamental principles of international law”. They see the TTC as the essential platform for spreading their shared democratic values. Several European sources insist that the TTC is not targeted at any particular country when dealing with non-market economies, coercion or information manipulation.
Until a few weeks ago, some Member State representatives had expressed the wish to mention China more explicitly, with regard to non-competitive practices and threats of coercion. The latest draft declaration does not refer to any particular country on these issues.
Third party expectations
The employers’ organisation BusinessEurope joined the US Chamber of Commerce in expressing its desire to see the TTC further expand transatlantic coordination. Concerns about China, but also diverging EU-US policies on digital, protectionist threats, and supply chain security, could also be the subject of transatlantic work, according to these two representatives of EU and US industry.
For its part, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) called on the EU and the US to engage more with trade unions and deliver on workers’ rights. They propose, for example, the creation of a tripartite transatlantic dialogue on trade and labour involving trade unions and business.
See the draft joint statement: https://aeur.eu/f/1mk (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)