EU Releases Progress Report on Trade Talks With US
The European Commission issued a progress report dated Jan. 30 on the ongoing trade talks with the U.S. to provide "a detailed overview on the state of play," the EC said in a news release. Among other things, the report notes that any new Section 232 measures on EU autos "would effectively block further progress on key elements." Such restrictions "on trade of automobile products would in any event lead to the suspension of negotiations in industrial tariffs as well as to rebalancing measures as in the area of steel and aluminium," it said. While most items on the report don't require specific negotiating objectives from the EC, the talks around industrial tariffs did require negotiating directives (see 1901180022).
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The EC also noted the narrow focus of the negotiations, spurred by a meeting between EU and U.S. leaders last year (see 1807250058). "It should be kept in mind that the two Presidents agreed in this joint agenda to focus on a limited range of areas where results could be realistically achieved quickly and without entering areas of significant sensitivity for either side," the EC said. "This is why for example the joint agenda does not include agriculture – which is a sensitivity for the EU side -- or public procurement -- which is a sensitivity for the US. In this sense, cooperation under the joint agenda should not be compared with the wide-ranging and comprehensive scope of a typical modern EU trade agreement, such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) which the EU and US were negotiating until 2016."