“We negotiate first, but we are preparing at the same time,” said European Commissioner Maros Sefcovic before the press, after a meeting of the EU trade ministers in Brussels. He stressed that it was a common position of the twenty-seven.
“The ministers have adopted a completely united position on the need to be ready to react” if necessary, said Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs Lars Rokke Rasmussen, whose country currently provides the rotating presidency of the EU.
The European Commissioner, chief negotiator on the European side in these difficult commercial negotiations with Washington, confirmed his intention to continue the discussions until the deadline of August 1 decided by President Donald Trump, including on Monday with his American counterparts.
And Mr. Sefcovic to add: “But as I have already said, it takes two hands to applaud”, and therefore the EU must also prepare any reprisals in the event of the failure of the discussions. The list of 72 billion euros in American goods that the EU could target does not exhaust the field of all possibilities, he said.
“All the instruments remain on the table,” he said. The EU has already prepared a separate American import list worth 21 billion euros that it is ready to aim due to customs duties already imposed by Mr. Trump on steel and aluminum. These measures are currently suspended.