No clarity yet on resumption of work on EU-US deal

Decisions on the continuation of work in the European Parliament on the approval of the trade deal between the European Union and the United States will not be made until February. This was announced by the social democratic chair of the trade committee and chief negotiator on the dossier, Bernd Lange, on X.

Last week, the European Parliament's trade committee decided to put the approval procedure for the trade agreement between the US and the EU on hold due to threats by US president Donald Trump regarding Greenland, culminating in tariffs against European countries that sent military personnel to the island.

After tensions eased, the Commission and the Council - the EU member states - indicated that they hoped Parliament would be able to resume its work. Parliament president Roberta Metsola, who is a member of the largest Christian democratic group in Parliament, shared this view. On Thursday, she called for work to continue “in the coming days”.

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However, she was quickly rebuffed by the social democrats (S&D), the liberals (Renew) and the Greens, who believe it is far too early to return to “business as usual”. There is still a great deal of uncertainty about Greenland and security in the Arctic region, and the EU does not yet have a watertight strategy on how to deal with the US in general.

On Monday, the trade committee held a structural dialogue with the European Commission, during which the various groups presented their positions. It is now up to the rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs – the negotiators for each group – to decide by the end of February whether or not to resume the procedure, according to Lange. “The negotiating team will meet again next Wednesday, 4 February to reassess the situation,” he wrote.

Once the MEPs decide to continue the work, they will continue to negotiate the content of the trade agreement. There are still many questions about this, for example about tariffs and quotas on steel and aluminium. Only when these questions concerning the agreement have been settled will a date be set for the vote.

^{German MEP Bernd Lange © PHOTO JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN / AFP}

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