Star Metro - Under Trump pressure, EU seeks deal to end trade standoff

The 27-nation bloc struck an accord with Washington last July setting levies on most European goods at 15 percent, but a final version of the text still needs to be nailed down on the EU side -- to Trump's frustration.

Negotiators from the EU's parliament and capitals kicked off closed-door negotiations just after 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) for talks that were expected to stretch late into the night.

They hope to seal a compromise that would allow the bloc to meet Trump's deadline and turn the page on more than a year of transatlantic trade battles.

"A deal is a deal," the US mission to the EU posted on X ahead of the meeting, saying the bloc "must live up" to the agreement sealed in Turnberry, Scotland, between Trump and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen.

Short of that, Trump has warned the European Union should expect "much higher" tariffs -- and has already vowed to raise duties on European cars and trucks from 15 to 25 percent.

The tariff blitz unleashed by Trump before the Turnberry accord, including hefty levies on steel, aluminium and car parts, jolted the bloc into cultivating trade ties around the world.

But the EU cannot afford to neglect the 1.6-trillion-euro ($1.9-trillion) relationship with the United States, its largest trade partner.

Cyprus, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said its goal remains "the swift implementation of the EU-US joint statement".

To reach a compromise with member states, parliament is under pressure to renege on several amendments it added to the text in March that the Americans consider unacceptable.

The head of parliament's trade committee, Bernd Lange, struck an optimistic note, saying: "I hope we can reach a compromise."

But first, he needs to hammer out a common stance between the parliament's different factions, which were haggling until the last moment.

- 'Sunrise' to 'sunset' -

The EU parliament's conditional green light came after months of delay caused by Trump's designs on Greenland and a US Supreme Court ruling striking down many of the president's tariffs.

The assembly's largest force, the conservative European People's Party (EPP), to which von der Leyen belongs, is now pushing hard to implement the accord, which it says is vital to ending a period of damaging uncertainty for EU businesses.

EPP lawmaker Zeljana Zovko told AFP she was "confident that we will get it done".

The EPP has firm support from the hard-right ECR, but several political groups had yet to make their position public, and it remained unclear how far the majority would compromise to get a deal.

Lawmaker Kathleen Van Brempt of the Socialists and Democrats, parliament's second-biggest group, said they would "engage constructively" but fight for safeguards "to guarantee stability, predictability and protection for European businesses and workers".

One bone of contention is a suspension clause toughened by parliament that would scrap favourable tariff conditions for US exporters, should the United States later breach the terms of the deal.

Another concerns so-called "sunrise" and "sunset" clauses under which the EU side of the accord would kick in once the United States makes fully good on its pledges, and would expire unless renewed in 2028.

Green lawmaker Anna Cavazzini said "the odds are good" but warned that member states would need to "budge" on parliament's main priorities.

"These past weeks have shown time and again that Trump is not to be trusted, so the EU needs stronger tools at hand," she said.

D.Fraser--SMC