On Tuesday 17 May, EU Commissioners Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis presented the results of the second meeting of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC), which was held in Paris on 16 May, to members of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA).
For Ms Vestager, the first meeting in Pittsburgh in September served to set an agenda, and the Paris meeting to define political objectives. “That means that our next meeting, which will be held before end of the year, will have to deliver projects, agenda policy projects”, she said.
The two European Commissioners detailed the progress of the TTC (see EUROPE 12953/4) before answering MEPs’ questions. Several political groups asked whether the work of the TTC could be extended or shared with other partners close to the EU and the US, notably Japan.
For Mr Dombrovskis, the TTC is a bilateral forum and will remain so. However, he said that the EU and the US were aware that on some issues, there would be a need to reach out to other third countries through other formats.
In addition, the issue of trade disputes between the EU and the US was raised by several MEPs who wanted to know whether these disputes were addressed in the context of the TTC. “We are not discussing them so much. But we have bilateral meetings [...] We do hope not to see new 232 tariffs. Wether we can give complete guarantees, that’s a question mark. But the more we are engaged, the more we cooperate, the less likely it is to become”, said Valdis Dombrovskis. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)