Good morning and welcome to the Euro Express.

On the second day of U.S. President Joe Biden’s Brussels trip, he will meet with European Council President Charles Michel (who will focus on Covid-19 and foreign affairs) and European Commission President Ursula von der Lein (climate And trade) to hold a 90-minute summit. ).We will study the expected results of the meeting-especially Increasingly possible transactions Regarding the more than a decade-long dispute between Airbus and Boeing-and the stimulus that still exists.

We will also explore the consequences of the EU’s upcoming multi-billion-euro borrowing program: promoting employment in the European Parliament, or at least calling for increased recruitment.

One of the other things that deserve attention today is that the EU health ministers are meeting in Luxembourg to discuss ways to promote access to medicines across the EU. This will include regulations for smaller member states and ways to strengthen the role of the alliance’s drug agency in preparing for the next crisis.

Quick fix

French wine, Harley Davidson, ornamental fish. .. The products that have been troubled in the EU-US trade dispute over the past few years give people a glimpse of the world’s largest bilateral economic relationship. But, under Joe Biden’s leadership, to what extent can the frayed transatlantic relationship be repaired?

The President of the United States continues his European trip today, and the first EU-US summit will be held during his presidency.The EU reporter wrote that trade policy will be the front and center of the talks with Ursula von der Lein and Charles Michel in Brussels Jim Brunsden.

Diplomats and officials confirmed last night that an agreement will be reached to end the 17-year battle over aircraft subsidies. If agreement is reached later today, it will be a real and tangible achievement. Contacts on the eve of the summit have been tense: EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis met with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai at least on Monday, and in the evening with Secretary of Commerce Gina Gina Raimondo held talks.

Ending tit-for-tat subsidy complaints against Airbus and Boeing will not only eliminate long-standing stimulus factors in trade relations.This also shows that the two sides have moved the firepower away from the other side and focused on Challenges from China.

EU officials and diplomats said last night that unless there are obstacles at the last minute, such as opposition from governments, a “multi-year” agreement is about to be reached.

The sticking point includes arguing about how much EU governments need to withdraw from Airbus. Another point of contention is the EU’s promotion of the inclusion of US defense contracts and R&D funds into subsidy rules.

The European Union’s American Chamber of Commerce yesterday marked the Airbus-Boeing deal as a potential “low-hanging fruit” to promote transatlantic relations (trade officials who have been struggling for more than a decade in this fierce dispute may disagree with this designation).

We need a stable data transmission framework, which is absolutely essential for our company

Other items on the company’s wish list include the removal of tariffs related to the steel and aluminum disputes of the Donald Trump era.The business group also hopes to establish a new data transmission framework, following the European Court of Justice Struck last year Sign a transatlantic agreement called the “Privacy Shield”.

But eliminating trade worries, even major issues like the Airbus-Boeing dispute, is different from the common agenda. It also does not exclude new lines-such as the planned EU digital tax (As we wrote here) Or the European Union’s uneasiness about the Biden government’s support for the Covid-19 vaccine patent exemption.

It is worth remembering that during the distant Obama presidency, there was a time when the European Union and the United States were seriously trying to reach a huge bilateral trade agreement. In today’s reshaped political landscape, these ideas are pure fantasy. On the contrary, there are more modest plans to promote cooperation, especially through the establishment of trade and technology committees to improve the coordination of regulations and standards in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

Brussels is also eager to inject vitality into the process of reforming the World Trade Organization. This is a long-term goal, and the European Union (by definition, a faithful believer in multilateral institutions) sees it as one of the main means to resolve concerns about the Chinese state’s support for the capitalist model.

But all this raises the question of whether the Biden administration believes that differences with China can eventually be resolved through a rule-based agency.

The Trump administration has little confidence in these concepts. It turned to imposing large-scale punitive tariffs on Chinese goods, trying to force Beijing to make meaningful concessions on issues such as forced technology transfer. The ability to meaningfully coordinate with the EU on how to deal with Beijing’s policies will be a test of Biden’s position.

Chart du jour: In Greece, we trust

The yield on the five-year Greek government bond fell below zero for the first time on Monday, which means that investors are actually prepared to pay Athens for up to five years of borrowing, since the country was excluded from the bond market and required the region during the debt crisis. A series of rescue plans. Italy is now the only member of the Eurozone with positive five-year borrowing costs—albeit only slightly above zero. (Read more here)

European Job Creation Program

The European Commission will begin to officially approve its first batch of national Covid-19 recovery plans in the next few days, and will also launch the starting gun for large-scale lending activities, wrote Merlin Khan with Sam Fleming In Brussels.

The much-anticipated recovery and the launch of the Recovery Fund will help fund the economic recovery of the affected EU member states more than a year after the outbreak of the pandemic. It can also provide a boost to one of its main institutions: the European Parliament.

The parliament is seeking to add more than 140 staff to join its ranks next year, citing the additional workload-including the regulation of RRF spending-as a reason to increase manpower. The staffing requirements of the Parliament are part of the discussion on how to allocate the EU’s 2022 annual budget.

Damian Boeselager, a member of the Ministry of Environmental Protection who is responsible for the annual budget negotiations, said that the parliament’s request for 142 additional staff reflects chronic shortages in important areas of its secretariat, including the budget control committee. “We have about 10 employees who control budget spending. This is much lower than most national parliaments,” he said.

European Parliament officials said that the reason for the need for additional personnel is partly due to the novelty of the Recovery Fund and the recently launched European Future Conference. More parliamentary resources are needed because the committee has strengthened the proposed legislation in areas such as environmental policy.

Nonetheless, 142 people (66 of them will be allocated to parliamentary staff and 76 will be allocated to political groups) have attracted the attention of member states. On the one hand, diplomats pointed out that Parliament does not have a strong say in the way the recovery funds are used. Members of the European Parliament have an advisory and non-binding role in reviewing plans.

The requested increase also exceeds the additional personnel requirements of the two EU institutions that will play a more central role in the RRF: the European Council and the Commission itself. At the same time, the newly established European Public Prosecutor’s Office has not yet been approved to hire the 50 additional staff required by it in order to be able to use EU funds to investigate fraud and corruption, including RRF (As we pointed out here).

However, none of this prevented the parliament. “If we are concerned about the parliamentary review and appropriately follow up on the expenditure of EU funds, then we need more staff in the committee secretariat,” Boslag said.

Three things to pay attention to today

1. Joe Biden meets with senior EU officials for his first EU-U.S. summit

2. The Supreme Court of Poland makes a ruling on the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice

3. EU health ministers meet in Luxembourg

Noteworthy

We will need a series of vaccines-one thing we learned from this pandemic is that once you start making predictions, other things will happen

• Governments should work with Mixing different coronavirus vaccines The head of the European drug regulatory agency said in an interview with the Financial Times that this is the best opportunity to end the pandemic.

• NATO leader Sent yesterday This is a broad warning to China, showing that Western capitals are increasingly worried about the impact of Beijing’s growing military and economic power on Euro-Atlantic security.

• The Russian regime critic Alexei Navalny will not receive any special treatment in prison, Vladimir Putin Tell NBC News in an interviewThe Russian President did not guarantee that Navalny would leave the prison alive.

The future of FT Europe: a shift to a green growth strategy

Attend our “Future of Europe” live webinar on Thursday to study the development of the circular economy, learn how European institutions are working with partners around the world to achieve climate goals, and understand what policy makers need to do to promote future development. Continue global trade.Learn more and Register here Nowadays.

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