Reinhard Bütikofer: “guarded” welcome to outcome of recent summit between EU and US

An MEP has given a guarded welcome to the outcome of the recent summit between the EU and U.S.

The European Union and the United States of America held their second summit in Washington, DC and comment has come in on the negotiations.

German MEP Reinhard Bütikofer, transatlantic spokesperson of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament says: “In the run-up to the summit, it seemed that the US and the EU, unable to overcome important differences, would agree on a politically threadbare nothing burger just to cover up fundamental divergence. 

“The threat, however, from the US side that they would want to install a snapback mechanism that could put back in place exactly the same illegal tariffs which the negotiations had been designed to overcome, is a provocation.

“While the Biden administration keeps preaching the need to align with and to work with allies, it is undercutting the credibility of such declarations through its trade policy.

“The US cannot have it both ways: either we stick to a rules-based international trade order, then those rules must also apply to the US; or the US want to reserve the right to do to allies whatever they please, then they should drop the propaganda line about the rules-based order.”

Further comment came from BusinessEurope President Fredrik Persson whose organisation represents the business community in Europe.

He said, “I will not hide the disappointment of the European business community at the news that no permanent solutions have been found on our priority issues – critical minerals and steel and aluminium.

“We are still waiting for a long-promised agreement on critical minerals.”

Persson said, ” The deal is a way to secure our joint competitiveness and to build more resilient and integrated transatlantic value chains in the areas that are crucial for our digital and green transformations.

“On steel and aluminium, we welcome the fact that the two sides will continue negotiating until the end of the year.

“However, time is running out and businesses on both shores of the Atlantic face uncertainty with a prospect of tariffs and future rebalancing measures.”

He added, “We urge the two sides not to lose the sense of urgency and stay committed to finding permanent solutions for both of these important issues.”

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