The European Commission and the United States will hold the third meeting of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) on 5 December. And one thing is clear on the European side: the TTC must now deliver tangible results, one year after its implementation. Several EU sources have expressed this expectation in recent weeks, and the EU Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, reiterated this at an event on TTC with stakeholders on 21 November.
“We need to prove that the TTC can deliver concrete and tangible results, across all its work streams”, he said. To do this, the joint statement that will follow the meeting must be “much sharper and more focused”, according to Mr Dombrovskis. It is also expected to be shorter than the one in May, at only about ten pages, according to two sources. The December version was about 50 pages long with annexes.
The statement should be accompanied by a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ on artificial intelligence. Other expected results could concern certain compliance procedures, digital tools in transatlantic cooperation, mutual recognition of pharmaceutical products or cooperation on unfair trade practices, according to the Commissioner for Trade.
In addition, the EU has proposed to create a transatlantic initiative on sustainable trade to “cooperate on standards and actions that can support the green transition”, in the words of Mr Dombrovskis. The project is expected to be launched jointly on 5 December, with the meeting focusing on standards for ‘Megawatt Charging Systems’, the new charging systems for electric vehicles.
IRA. Discord over the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is also expected to be discussed at the meeting in Washington, despite the establishment of an EU-US Task Force on the subject (see EUROPE 13054/2, 13051/26).
The joint statement at the end of the meeting could potentially mention the IRA, two sources told EUROPE, but mainly to recall the work done in parallel to the TTC, in the framework of the task force. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)