The European Parliament that the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the president of the United States, Donald Trump, reached at the end of July last year in Scotland. MEPs have given the green light to a key step to move towards the final ratification of that agreement that ended – as long as the Republican does not change his mind – with the tariff battle that Washington started a year ago. Now, the European Parliament begins to negotiate with the Council of the EU, that is, with the Member States, the final ratification of , a step that is expected to be less eventful and faster than the parliamentary process.
Parliamentary ratification has brought relief to the European Commission. In principle, the agreement was supported by a group of parties that guaranteed a solid majority. But after what happened with the ratification of Mercosur, paralyzed by the legal doubts of the MEPs, and the repeated threats from Trump, just a few days ago he indicated that he could cut off exchanges with Spain for not allowing the use of military bases in the war with Iran, left room for surprise.
In the end everything went smoothly and Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic took a few minutes to celebrate the result: “A crucial step by Parliament. We need the EU-US agreement to be in force on both sides.”
🇪🇺🇺🇸 A crucial step by today. We need the EU-US deal in force on both sides – delivering real certainty for EU businesses and showing that genuine partnership gets results.
This is the direction we need. Tomorrow, I will meet Ambassador in Cameroon.
— Maroš Šefčovič🇪🇺 (@MarosSefcovic)
The United States Government was also very aware of what was happening this Thursday in Brussels. His ambassador to the European institutions, Andrew Puzder, has not delayed either and has “congratulated” the MEPs. “You have made the right decision for the citizens of both sides of the Atlantic,” he stressed, recalling that there are still negotiations between Parliament and the Council.
The ratification process in the European Parliament had been frozen on two occasions. The first came after the president of the United States threatened to impose prohibitive tariffs on the countries that participated in the maneuvers organized by Denmark in Greenland, when . This affected Denmark – under whose sovereignty the large frozen island in the north of the Atlantic Ocean is -, France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland, among the members of the EU.
Secondly, after the blow given by the Supreme Court to the first tax wave after assuming his second presidential term.
It contained, for the EU, a part of political will (the purchases of gas, weapons and investments) and a legal one. The latter involved the suspension of all tariffs on American industrial products and a system that favored the purchase of agricultural products. This would be the one that requires the approval of the EU Council and Parliament.
