On 25 November 2021, DG TRADE hosted an EU Stakeholder Outreach Event on possible EU-U.S. cooperation to address challenges arising from non-market economic policies/practices. This was the first of three stakeholder consultations on the Working Group on Global Trade Challenges of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) – TTC WG10. Based on a number of specific questions outlined in the Agenda for this event (see the detailed agenda), participants were invited to provide their views on priorities to be pursued under this work strand of TTC WG10 through the TTC Futurium platform.

Intellectual property (IP) protection (fight against state-sponsored IP theft, forced technology transfer) remains a priority for many stakeholders. BusinessEurope mentioned forced technology transfers as one of the most pressing issues facing EU companies. InterDigital highlighted the urgency to address this to allow EU and US companies to continue investing in new technology and pointed at the link between IP revenues and participation in standard setting bodies. It also underlined the continued need to address the issue of standard essential patent injunctions and pleaded for co-operation to incentivize R&D.

Several stakeholders (VDMA, InterDigital, BDI, CEN-CENELEC) underlined the importance to jointly set global standards, while some expressed concern relating to the decreasing EU/US presence in standard setting bodies. CEN-CENELEC proposed to focus in particular on Africa.

Subsidies and trade-distortive practices by State Owned Enterprises were also mentioned as priorities. Several stakeholders (Business Europe, BDI) expressed the need to engage multilaterally on global trade challenges, through the WTO and OECD, and involving like-minded countries such as Japan and others. BDI and AFEP added that the EU should use unilateral measures if necessary. Some (BusinessEurope) underlined the importance to keep each other informed, in particular of new domestic initiatives to counter non-market economic practices. AFEP pleaded for greater exchange of Trade Defence data, while each side should keep its autonomy. It also underlined the need to ensure coherence between the TTC working groups and between the TTC and other EU-US working groups (e.g. on aviation). DititalEurope pleaded for finalizing e-commerce negotiations in the WTO and to kick of ITA3 expansion negotiations.

Eurometaux emphasised the importance to tackle unfair trade practices leading to excess capacity of steel, aluminium, zinc and other metals and referred to the 2019 OECD report that measures the distortions in the aluminium value chain.

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On 30 November 2021, the Commission launched an invitation for stakeholders to provide their views/proposals on EU-US cooperation in the Working Group on Global Trade Challenges of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC WG 10): see the announcement in NEWS section of the Futurium TTC Working Group 10 platform. Stakeholders are encouraged to submit their views and proposals via Futurium, as further explained in the invitation, by 7 January 2022.

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