BRUSSELS, 14 (EUROPA PRESS)
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, will meet this Tuesday in Brussels with the presidents of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and of the European Council, Charles Michel, in a brief summit with which to stage the rapprochement after the departure of Donald Trump of the White House, in a meeting marked by tensions with Russia, the rapprochement in trade matters and the differences in the management of the coronavirus pandemic.
The three leaders already had the opportunity to see each other in person at the weekend during the G7 meeting in the United Kingdom, where Biden already made a gesture of support for the EU when he asked the British ‘premier’, Boris Johnson, not to endanger the part of the Brexit agreement that protects the Northern Ireland peace accords.
It is the first summit of this level between the EU and the United States in seven years and the European side especially celebrates the change of tone in their contacts with Washington and that “diplomacy is back”, according to diplomatic sources, who advance the launch of a “high-level dialogue” framework on Russia.
Moscow’s “destabilizing” role worries both sides and in this context it is understood that “transatlantic unity is essential to maximize pressure” on the Kremlin.
Biden will also seek harmony with the community bloc to face the growing geopolitical and economic weight of China, reservations that they share in the EU although they warn that the Asian giant is also a necessary ally in key global chapters such as climate change or the WTO.
The management of the pandemic is another key to the meeting this Tuesday, with the will expressed by both to contribute to the delivery of vaccines to the poorest countries, although they differ in the way of doing so.
While Biden supports the request of India and South Africa to liberalize the patents of the vaccines developed so far, the EU observes this option with suspicion, calls for intermediate measures such as voluntary or compulsory licenses and reproaches the United States for putting obstacles to the exports of serum and its components.
The trade issue is another of the chapters that the EU and the United States will address with a marked twist on the tensions of the Trump era and with the common goal of putting an end before the end of the year to the long dispute over the respective subsidies to Airbus and Boeing and the ‘tariff war’ as a consequence of this pulse.
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