As the EU bickers over counter-tariffs, Germany opens a direct channel to Trump to save its cars. The background to the Sefcovic-Greer summit.
The threat of Donald Trump to raise duties on European cars to 25% highlights once again the divisions and weakness of theEuropean Union. The reaction in Brussels is made up on the one hand of Rodomontese requests for immediate counter-duties, on the other of incongruous calls for calm and dialogue. The real issue, that is, the fact that theEuropean Union has not yet ratified a trade agreement reached months ago and considered closed by the American counterpart, it remains open. The agreement of Turnberrynegotiated last summer, was supposed to stabilize trade relations between the two sides of the Atlantic, but it turned into an unfinished process because the European Parliament and some of the member states have decided to intervene with new conditions, safeguard clauses and time limits which effectively reopen the content of the agreement.
This delay has become the main element of friction and explains the American choice to raise the level of the conflict. Even the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz he said it explicitly in a television interview: «Let’s just say that (Trump ed) is losing patience because last August we reached a customs agreement with the United States. New conditions continue to be formulated on the European side, and we have not yet signed.” A criticism by the Chancellor of the European Parliament and a position that shifts the focus of responsibility, putting into difficulty the most widespread narrative in the European debate, where there is a tendency to present the moves of Trump straddling the line between the moody and the dissociated.
The tug of war between Parliament and Commission
The European Parliament However, it claims a full role and tries to slow down a ratification considered too rapid. The President of the Trade Commission Bernd Langean old social democratic fox, made it clear that the assembly intends to exercise its prerogatives to the full and that without adequate safeguard clauses there is no majority in favor of the agreement.
Lange defends Parliament’s right to intervene on the text and influence it politically, underlining that the final vote will depend on the presence of sufficient guarantees for European industry. This position confirms that the European decision-making process remains open and that ratification times are not under control. It also confirms that on the one hand there are the States, who respond politically to an electorate and feel the pressure, on the other a politically irresponsible Commission which first closes an agreement, then realizes that there is no parliamentary majority for ratification. An institutional disaster bordering on the ridiculous. The industry’s concerns emerge clearly in yesterday’s statements from the European manufacturers’ association, Aceawhich says it is concerned about the delay in the implementation of the agreement and calls on the European institutions to conclude the negotiations as quickly as possible. In 2025 the Union exported to the United States approximately 670,000 vehicles for a value of 31 billion euroswith a share equal to 18.4% of overall exports.
The direct channel between Berlin and Washington
The confrontation between the US and the EU continues today in Paris, where the European Commissioner for Trade Maros Sefcovic meets with the US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the eve of G7 trade. The meeting represents an attempt to resume dialogue in a phase in which tensions have started to rise again, but in any case the ball is still in the hands of the European Parliament. The Commission says that all options remain on the table, including unnecessary counter-duties, but the issue remains that of timing and the real ability to translate the political agreement into a formal act.
The most indicative element of the European disorientation, however, concerns Germany’s behavior. The American representative Greer he declared that he was in contact not only with EU officials but also with German interlocutors, confirming that there is a direct channel between Berlin and Washington on a dossier that formally should be managed at EU level. This revelation, which perhaps will not please the Germans, caught with their hands in the cookie jar, contrasts with the pro-European narrative, according to which trade negotiations must be conducted exclusively by the institutions of the Union and cannot be the subject of bilateral initiatives by individual states.
The reality is different and shows a slightly more concrete dynamic, also because the current case is different from the one outlined in the articles 207 And 218 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. There we are talking about trade agreements, not about being the subject of other people’s duties, as is the current case. Germany does not hesitate to move autonomously when its interests are at stake and maintains a direct dialogue with the United States to defend its automotive sector, which is the most exposed to possible tariff measures.
Once again, we are faced with the distance between the naive representation of the European Union as a unitary subject and the reality of a system in which the logic of the strongest prevails. Which should raise the following simple question in someone: if it is true that the EU deals for everyone, what do the Germans talk about with the Americans?
