A majority in the European Parliament has agreed to postpone the approval of the trade agreement that the EU and the US concluded in 2025. This is stated by Iratxe Garcia Perez, who is the president of the social democratic S&D group, according to the French media outlet Le Monde.
According to the media outlet, she says that there is a "majority agreement" among the political groups to "freeze" the trade agreement, which must be approved in the European Parliament. The largest group in the parliament, the European People's Party (EPP), confirms, according to Le Monde, that the discussions on the agreement have been frozen.
The EU's trade agreement with the US was concluded in the summer of 2025, but it still needs the approval of the European Parliament. According to the AFP news agency, the plan was for the EU Parliament to vote in the "coming weeks" on whether to remove tariffs on American goods as part of the agreement.
The chairmen of several of the major political groups in the EU Parliament have previously expressed that they do not believe that the trade agreement should be approved after Trump's new tariff threats.
For example, Manfred Weber, who is the chairman of the EPP, wrote on Saturday on X that although the group is in favor of the trade agreement, in light of Trump's threats regarding Greenland, it cannot approve the agreement.
On Friday, US President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries if a deal is not made in which the US gets Greenland.
Trump has said that he will impose a ten percent tariff on the countries from February 1. The tariff will increase to 25 percent on June 1 if no agreement has yet been reached, the president said.
The leaders of the EU countries will meet on Thursday for an extraordinary summit in Brussels. Here they will discuss possible responses to Trump's threats.
Agreement exempts the US from tariffs
In the summer of 2025, the EU and the US agreed on an agreement that meant that most goods from the EU would be subject to a 15 percent tariff in the US. Conversely, American goods would not be subject to tariffs in the EU.
On Tuesday, the President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, called Trump's tariff threats a "mistake". This was done in a speech at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, where Trump will arrive on Wednesday.
- The EU and the US entered into a trade agreement in July last year. And in politics as in business, an agreement is an agreement. And when friends shake hands, it must mean something, von der Leyen said.
She further said that the EU's response to US tariffs will be "unwavering, united and proportionate".
/ritzau/
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