EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has defended the EU-US trade agreement, saying it “prevented a trade war” that “would have been celebrated only in Moscow and Beijing.”
The commission president took to the opinion pages on Sunday (25 August), with articles in Italy’s Sole 24 Ore and Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
The pieces were written in response to criticism from Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank chief and Italian prime minister, who two days earlier had accused the EU of being “absent” on tariffs and looming trade wars.
Brussels and Washington published a joint statement on their upcoming trade deal last week. Speaking at an event in Rimini a day later, on Friday, Draghi criticised the EU’s decision to give in to US trade demands.
“We’ve had to resign ourselves to the tariffs imposed by our largest trading partner and longstanding ally, the United States,” he said.
“We were pressured by that same ally to increase military spending, a decision we perhaps should have made anyway, but in ways that likely do not reflect Europe’s interests,” he added.
Meanwhile, "China has made it clear that it does not regard Europe as a full partner and uses its control over rare earths to make our dependence increasingly binding," he said.
He also called the EU a “spectator” in conflicts in Iran and Gaza and said the bloc had played a “relatively marginal role” in the peace negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, despite having contributed the most to aid the country and the greatest interest in a “just peace.”
Initial details also suggest the EU has given in to US pressure to water down its corporate supply chain, deforestation, and sustainability reporting rules.
Von der Leyen, in her articles on Sunday, acknowledged the EU-US trade deal was “imperfect”, but said it was necessary for “stability.”
"With retaliatory tariffs from our side, we would risk fuelling a costly trade war with negative consequences for our workers, consumers, and industry,” she wrote.
And, she said, EU escalation would not have changed the “US’ commitment to its higher and more unpredictable tariff regime.”
At the same time, she reaffirmed that Europe will keep working to open up trade with other partners, pointing to recent agreements with Mexico, Mercosur, Switzerland, the UK, and Indonesia, with India next in line.
Only a “strong and independent” Europe, with a finished single market and more competitive industries, could hold its ground, she said.
Draghi, however, warned that recent events undermined Europe’s credibility and authority.
“For years, the EU believed that its economy with 450 million consumers, gave it geopolitical power and influence in international trade relations. This year will be remembered as the one in which this illusion has evaporated,” he said.
It was "not surprising that scepticism towards Europe has reached new heights," he added.
"It is not scepticism about the values on which the European Union was founded: democracy, peace, freedom, independence, sovereignty, prosperity, equity," Draghi said.
"Rather, I believe that scepticism is about the European Union’s ability to defend these values," he said.
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Wester is a journalist from the Netherlands with a focus on the green economy. He joined EUobserver in September 2021. Previously he was editor-in-chief of Vice, Motherboard, a science-based website, and climate economy journalist for The Correspondent.
Wester is a journalist from the Netherlands with a focus on the green economy. He joined EUobserver in September 2021. Previously he was editor-in-chief of Vice, Motherboard, a science-based website, and climate economy journalist for The Correspondent.