The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has warned on Tuesday that the European Union has strength to “counterattack” and has a “solid plan” against tariffs adopted by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, which affect numerous sectors, and the forecast that tomorrow Washington announces tariffs ‘reciprocal’ against many merchandise.
In an intervention in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the community leader has insisted that the “commercial” confrontation “does not benefit anyone” and although the European Executive is willing to work for a “constructive solution” for a commercial balance of both goods and services with the United States, he affirmed that he has the ability to respond firmly to the Washington pulse.
“It has to be clear: Europe has not started this confrontation. We do not necessarily want to retaliate, but we have a solid plan to do so if necessary,” he said, after emphasizing that the European bloc “has everything necessary” to protect citizens and European prosperity.
Von der Leyen has detailed that the priority is the “unity and determination” of the Europeans, so he has defended their contacts with the EU leaders over “the next steps” to give. “We will carefully evaluate tomorrow’s ads to calibrate our answer,” he said.
In any case, he has reiterated before the MEPs that the EU has the largest single market in the world, “the strength to negotiate and counterattack.” “The citizens of Europe should know: together we will always promote and defend our interests and values and we will always defend Europe,” he said.
Enhance the single market
Thus, von der Leyen has opted to get all the power it has to the single market, ensuring that the recipe against US tariffs also goes through it and withdraw obstacles to transactions within the EU.
“The single market is the cornerstone of integration and European values. It is our powerful catalyst of growth, prosperity and solidarity,” he said, defending “withdraw barriers” that exist in the single market to have a “larger one, that goes fast and far.”
That is why he has announced that Brussels will present “next month” more proposals to simplify the operation of the single market with “concrete and bold proposals” to eliminate some of these barriers and avoid new ones, which has said equals a 45% tariff for manufactures and 110% for services in Europe.