The new EU-US Trade and Technology Council in action: priorities for business, workers and consumers and necessary safeguards

Key points

  The EESC:

• The new EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) can form the core of an agenda to reboot our transatlantic partnership with trusted channels of cooperation. The TTC can be an important forum to engage on existing obstacles in our bilateral EU-US trade and investment relations as well as a strategic platform to protect our values and to respond to global trade disruptions.
• In turbulent geopolitical times, there is a great responsibility to push forward a modern cooperation framework for trade and technology, which supports an open and sustainable economy, free and fair trade and respects democratic values, decent work and human rights.
• Trade and technology are not just about regulatory issues but essential tools to protect and promote universal values worldwide. The TTC provides a unique opportunity for strategic cooperation on trade and technology that surpasses current ad hoc cooperation arrangements.
• The transatlantic partners must quickly find ways to strengthen the resilience of our open democratic societies, including by ensuring our global value and supply chains and energy security, in particular, with a view to the urgent need to replace Russian energy and raw material supplies. They must invest greater efforts in strengthening multilateralism and in tackling challenges related to climate change, to ensuring that free and fair trade is not undermined, and to prevent market disruption by authoritarian states.
• Under the TTC, the EU and the US must aim for a more strategic and horizontal approach, and the ten Working Groups should seek a holistic and effectively coordinated approach to cooperation that does not create any unnecessary silos. The EESC welcomes the announcement of a tripartite Trade and Labour Dialogue but urges the Commission to address the imbalance of labour democracy due to the non-ratification of six ILO fundamental Conventions.
• Transparency and strong stakeholder engagement on both sides of the Atlantic is the only way for the TTC to reach its targets. The EESC will engage actively within the TTC structures and seeks to be involved as a unique civil society stakeholder in the TTC ministerial meetings.