(Adnkronos) – EU member states meeting in the Trade Defence Instruments Committee voted in favour of the European Commission’s proposal to introduce trade countermeasures against the United States, in response to the decision to reimpose duties on imports of steel and aluminium from the EU. The Commission communicates this.
Hungary announced its negative vote, which is however irrelevant in the comitology procedure. For the EU, US tariffs are “unjustified and harmful”, causing economic damage to both sides and the global economy. The EU has expressed its “clear preference” for seeking negotiated solutions with the United States that are “balanced” and “mutually beneficial”.
Once the Commission’s internal procedures have been completed and the implementing act has been published, the countermeasures will enter into force. Duties on a range of American products will start to be levied from 15 April. These countermeasures “can be suspended at any time, if the United States accepts a fair and balanced negotiated solution”.
The duties will be collected from April 15th for an estimated 3.9 billion euros of goods, from May 15th for 13.5 billion and from December 1st for 3.5 billion. Today’s vote on the Implementing Regulation on commercial rebalancing measures concerning certain products originating in the United States of America was held in the Trade Barriers Committee (Tbr) at the Commission’s headquarters in Borschette, Etterbeek (a municipality of Brussels-Capital), according to the rules of comitology.
In short, the Commission proposes the countermeasures, which are passed unless a qualified majority of Member States objects. The Tbr is a committee made up of representatives of the Member States, attended by ministerial delegates at a technical level from the capitals. The implementing regulation is accompanied by four annexes, which list four lists with the various products subject to duties, together with the relative rates.
The new lists repeat, with the exception of whiskey and bourbon, the categories already affected by the rebalancing measures adopted in 2018 (then suspended in 2021), adding a wider range of goods, due to the increase and the extension of US duties on iron and steel which entered into force on 12 March.
