EU and US pledge cooperation on Covid, semi-conductors, sanctions and climate

The United States and the European Union are committed to: ‘

• End[ing] the COVID-19 pandemic, prepar[ing] for future global health challenges, and driv[ing] forward a sustainable global recovery;
• Protect[ing] our planet and foster[ing] green growth; strengthen[ing] trade, investment and technological cooperation; and
• Build[ing] a more democratic, peaceful and secure world, whilst upholding the rules-based international order with the United Nations at its core.’

So reads a joint statement issued following a summit meeting at which ‘leaders of the European Union and the United States met…to renew [their] Transatlantic partnership [and] set a Joint Transatlantic Agenda for the post-pandemic era.’

The statement said that a ‘Joint EU-US COVID Manufacturing and Supply Chain Taskforce had been established’ to ‘deepen cooperation and identify and resolve issues around expanding vaccine and therapeutics production capacity’, building new facilities, and looking at ‘maintaining open and secure supply chains, avoiding any unnecessary export restrictions,’ and encouraging voluntary knowledge sharing.

Other aspirations outlined in the document are that the EU and United States ‘enhance cooperation on the use of sanctions to pursue shared foreign policy and security objectives, while avoiding possible unintended consequences for European and US interests. In this respect, we resolve to continue to engage on issues on which we might have different approaches.’

And, the statement informs, the two powers have established a ‘EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC)’. This would establish working groups focused on ‘technology standards cooperation (including on AI, Internet of Things, among other emerging technologies), climate and green tech, ICT security and competitiveness, data governance and technology platforms, the misuse of technology threatening security and human rights, export controls, investment screening, promoting SMEs access to, and use of, digital technologies, and global trade challenges.’

It would also ‘commit to building an EU-US partnership on the rebalancing of global supply chains in semiconductors with a view to enhancing EU and US respective security of supply as well as capacity to design and produce the most powerful and resource efficient semiconductors.’

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/50443/eu-us-summit-joint-statement-15-june-final-final.pdf