The European Union is pushing the US to facilitate trade by agreeing on common technical requirements for manufacturers of some clean technologies as the two sides seek to strengthen their strategic cooperation.
“From the EU side, we are willing to be bolder and move faster in those areas of trade facilitation, or cooperation in the area of standardization,” European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters in Lulea, Sweden, on Tuesday. He said the EU also wants progress on mutual recognition of testing and certification of some goods.
“Often it may sound quite technical, but those technical things can actually facilitate and unlock quite large volumes of trade,” he added.
The EU has been more focused on agreeing on mutual standards and smoothing trade relations, while Washington has been targeting the coercive economic practices of China.
The most recent version of a draft statement to be agreed on at an EU-US meeting in Sweden, however, watered down earlier versions that singled out Beijing and pledged closer cooperation on new instruments, including screening investments bound for places like China.
Still, Dombroskis said that the transatlantic allies “shared many concerns” in regards to economic security and economic coercion, and they were coordinating their approaches as much as possible.
After failing to progress on a free trade deal and following years of trade tensions during the Trump administration, the trading partners tried to tone down the risk of a full-blown tariff war by agreeing on truces in the airplane and steel and aluminum sectors.
They also created the US-EU Trade and Technology Council forum to coordinate their strategic approach to those issues.
The two sides achieved some progress in the manufacturing of veterinary medicines, and Brussels is willing to progress on the conformity assessment of machinery products, including for clean technology, which represents over $20 billion in bilateral trade, Dombrovskis said.
“There is some progress, certainly one could wish for more,” he added. “We need to look at this positive bilateral agenda and trade facilitation being an important part of it.”
Dombrovskis, commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton are meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai on Tuesday and Wednesday for the fourth session of the TTC.
