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A top member of the European Parliament has warned against blocking the ratification of the trade deal signed by the EU and the United States last summer in retaliation for the bellicose language around Greenland from the Trump administration.
“We need to separate the two issues: the EU-US trade deal and support for Greenland”, top European People’s Party MEP David McAllister told flagship Euronews morning show Europe Today on Thursday.
“We need to finalise the US trade talks because companies need predictability,” he added.McAllister, who is chair of the European Parliament’s committee on foreign affairs.
The European Parliament must ratify the agreement reached by Donald Trump and the Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen last August in Scotland, which tripled tariffs on EU products while reducing to zero industrial good coming from the US.
The US is pushing to have the full ratification of the agreement in place, but several MEPs are considering blocking the approval process to protest Trump’s ownership demands on the Danish territory which he claims will happen “one way or another.”
McAllister said “there are different views within the political groups” of the European Parliament but insisted the two should be treated as the two issues.
“The EPP and the European Conservatives are for moving forward [approving the deal], he said. “The Socialists, liberals and greens perhaps want to postpone the vote.”
On Wednesday, the Parliament issued a joint statement from the leaders of the political groups expressing their “unequivocal support to Greenland and Denmark” and condemned the bellicose language employed by the US, which has not ruled out military means to gain ownership of the semi-autonomous rich in rare earth minerals.
“We have been very clear in our commitment towards Greenland. The European Union will step up its engagement in Greenland: financial support for it will be doubled in the next annual multi-financial framework,” the statement said.
