In a saga that is struggling to come to a conclusion, the European Parliament’s rapporteurs on EU-US relations finally agreed on Tuesday 17 March to vote in committee on Thursday 19 March on the two regulations linked to last summer’s bilateral trade agreement to reduce or eliminate tariffs on certain US products.
Negotiations have already been put on hold several times on the European Parliament side, following US threats to annex Greenland or the invalidation of US tariffs by the US Supreme Court. In addition, the EU is the subject of a new Section 301 investigation (see EUROPE 13827/26).
According to our information, the S&D, Renew Europe, Greens/EFA and The Left groups are not planning a plenary vote before the April session.
However, even when proceeding cautiously, “this EU-US trade agreement no longer rests on solid foundations”, criticised Martin Schirdewan (The Left, German).
On the contrary, the prospect of a quick vote is a relief for the EPP group, which believes that the adoption that has been awaited for months “will avoid the risk of a trade war and preserve the positive dynamic of our transatlantic trade relations”, as Željana Zovko (Croatian) put it.
The group would like the plenary vote to take place as early as next week, at a mini-plenary meeting in Brussels, following the vote in the Committee on International Trade (INTA) on Thursday.
The ‘sunrise clause’ proposed by Jörgen Warborn (EPP, Swedish) seems to have convinced (see EUROPE 13825/31). On X, he said he was satisfied that cooperation on his proposal “strikes the right balance”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)