V.The talks on the Atlantic partnership will take place when the leaders of the European Union and the United States meet for a summit in Brussels on Tuesday. Also included: US President Joe Biden, Ursula van der Leyen, President of the European Commission, Charles Michael, President of the Council of the European Union.
They all combine common interests and values and praise the common agenda. This is the first EU / US summit in four years. Topics: Govt-19, Climate, Trade and Investment, Technology, Foreign Policy. But what are the points of contention between the EU and Washington, and what about the diplomatically sugar-coated rhetoric? An overview:
Vaccine distribution
For some time, the United States has been pushing for the vaccine to be patented. Germany in particular opposes this, insisting on the right to patent protection. Often, the EU does not have a uniform position.
The European Commission is against a liberation, and the European Parliament has spoken in favor. Commission chair Ursula van der Leyen argues that protected intellectual property rights should be in place: “Intellectual property rights must be protected.” This was the basis for the development of Govt vaccines.
French President Emmanuel Macron had put a brake on EU vaccination orders by relying on the French vaccine from Sanofi, which has not yet been developed. Macron is now on the side of US President Joe Biden and has been promoting the temporary release of the vaccine patent. Macron says intellectual property should not be a barrier to vaccine access.
NGOs such as Oxfam also support this position. The G-7, which concluded Sunday at the Cornwall Summit, pledged to donate at least 870 million vaccine doses, half by the end of this year. The World Health Organization (WHO) is disappointed. “We need more, we need it faster,” said WHO President Tetros Adonom Caprais.
Freedom of movement
Recently, White House Govt coordinator Jeff Giants and representatives of the European Union / Schengen met. His title: Mutual travel restrictions in effect from March 2020 as a result of the Govt crisis. Van der Leyen had already volunteered in the United States in April to lift restrictions on vaccinated citizens.
American reaction: some empty words. Biden van der Leyen has been bored for weeks, while more EU countries are allowing vaccinated Americans to enter.
The European Union recently argued that Tuesday’s summit would be a good opportunity for the United States to announce the easing of sanctions. But the White House went cold again. There are no current plans to remove the restrictions or a specific timetable for opening them.
Many EU countries have pointed to the growing frustration of their citizens over the way the US has arranged exemptions from the entry ban. They also criticized the outstanding amount at many US embassies and the difficulties Europeans face in obtaining US visas. Will anything change in this regard on Tuesday? After the catastrophe of the vaccine order, von der Leன்n, who was more concerned with his image than ever before, urgently needed such a victory.
Security
The controversy is old, but far from over. In 2014, NATO countries agreed to increase their defense budgets to two percent of economic output by 2024. The United States (Overseas) clearly meets this goal. Many NATO countries in the European Union are lagging behind. Key example: Germany. Last year, apart from the United States, only ten countries – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Greece, Great Britain, Romania, Poland, France and Norway – achieved this goal.
Formally a topic for NATO is that the United States and the European Union should make it clear how much Americans want to be and be part of a European security strategy for the future. While Baltis and Poland promote this, France and Belgium are excluded.
China
Critical awareness of the increasingly aggressive behavior of the communist state and party leadership in China is growing in the EU. But the United States has long been on a very distant and stable course against Beijing.
In fact, Biden pursues Trump’s policies of criticizing China, yet without his extreme rhetoric. The Biden government calls China’s actions against the Muslim Uyghur minority “genocide.” The European Union considers China a “legitimate competitor” and has recently imposed sanctions.
The European Parliament, especially the Greens, has been campaigning for a clear demarcation from China. In May, parliament widely condemned China’s sanctions on several EU citizens, including five EU citizens. The study of the investment agreement between the EU and China has been “legally suspended” due to the imposition of Chinese sanctions.
The deal has largely angered President Angela Merkel (CDU) – the United States. On this issue, Fiden and Merkel are completely at odds with each other. On July 15, US President Merkel will be received for her final visit to the White House. Washington can reasonably hope that Merkel’s successor will direct a policy of formal criticism of China.
Trade
“The EU is just as bad as China,” Donald Trump said three years ago. He complained that Europe was selling cars to the US, while US manufacturers were finding it very difficult to sell their products to the EU. Biden pursues parts of Trump’s protectionist policy, wants to bring back lost industrial jobs to the United States, and praises “Made in America.” In doing so, however, Biden focuses on China and does not come up with the idea of equating communist rule with the EU.
Instead, Washington wants to beat the EU in a common line against China. There are some indications that the EU and the US want to tackle their trade conflicts in recent years. Less reliance on China is America’s most important goal. The Biden government is set to renegotiate talks with the EU over decades of controversy over aid to aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing. The World Trade Organization found illegal subsidies from both companies. The Biden government and the EU Commission have ruled against imposing penalties.
Trump introduced special tariffs on aluminum and steel imports in 2018 to protect the domestic industry from starvation, especially in electoral states. The EU has responded by raising tariffs on US products such as whiskey and motorcycles. The EU first discounted doubling these fees this summer – a category Trade peace offer to the United States.
Nort Stream2
Despite considerable pressure from Congress, Biden has waived sanctions imposed on his predecessor Trump’s “North Stream 2” pipeline. That’s one Enormous respect towards Germany Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to meet with Biden for a one-on-one summit in Geneva on Wednesday. However, the United States continues to reject the Baltic Sea pipeline. It goes to both parties in Congress. Germany stands alone in this regard in the European Union.
Poland, the Baltic states and France reject the Nord Stream 2 project. Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. Contrary to this opinion, Angela Merkel’s negotiator recently held talks with Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan in Washington.
However, it is true that the United States also imports energy from Russia, more precisely oil. Climbing trend. For years, Russia’s share of annual U.S. oil imports was less than 0.5 percent; According to business news agency Bloomberg, it reached seven percent all the time. By 2020, US imports from Russia will average 538,000 barrels per day. This is more oil than the United States imports from Saudi Arabia.
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