On Wednesday 14 January, the rapporteurs of the Committee on International Trade (INTA) on the draft regulations relating to the EU-US trade agreement, agreed to meet next week, on Wednesday 21 January, to decide whether to postpone the committee vote on these texts.
Faced with US President Donald Trump’s increasingly provocative plans to take possession of Greenland, some MEPs have called for an end to all trade negotiations with the United States.
While the Council of the EU has already voted on the two draft regulations allowing for tariffs on certain American products to be reduced (see EUROPE 13762/15), Parliament still has to validate its position. Initially, a vote was due to take place at the next meeting of the INTA Committee on 26 January, but this is now linked to the final decision to be taken by the rapporteurs on 21 January.
A parliamentary source familiar with Wednesday’s preliminary discussions underlined “shared concerns” on the part of all the political groups. “There was general agreement in the room that it was necessary to strengthen the link with security”, the source added.
According to rapporteur Anna Cavazzini (Greens/EFA, German), “the only argument put forward in favour of this (trade) agreement was that it would bring stability”.
“Trump’s actions demonstrate once again that chaos is his only option. Giving a blank cheque is not in Europe’s interest”, she declared in a written comment to Agence Europe.
There is also talk of fine-tuning the content of the main regulation, as the permanent rapporteur on EU-US relations, Bernd Lange (S&D, German), has so far proposed withdrawing only steel and aluminium products (see EUROPE 13764/15).
At the same time, thirty Members of Parliament signed a letter initiated by the MEP Per Clausen (The Left, Danish), calling for an immediate freeze to all negotiations with the United States “for as long as claims for Greenland and threats are made by the US-administration”.
Mr Clausen expressed the hope that the INTA committee rapporteurs “will decide to take action at their next meeting, especially as Trump seems to be making new threats all the time”.
To see the letter from the thirty MEPs dated 14 January: https://aeur.eu/f/k8y (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)