Commission head Ursula von der Leyen will travel to Washington next week. It’s about Russia, China and US subsidy policy.
Brussels/Washington. It’s only been a week and a half since Joe Biden was in Europe and gave a speech at the Royal Castle in Warsaw on the future of the transatlantic relationship as a bulwark against Russian imperialism. But next week, the US President will once again have his hands full with Europe: on Monday, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, leaves for a week-long business trip to North America.
The first leg of the trip leads to Canada, where the head of the Brussels authority will meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. On the agenda are Euro-Canadian trade relations in the context of the war in Ukraine – specifically, the first is Canadian raw materials, which are intended to compensate, at least partially, for the loss of Russia as Europe’s main supplier and the negotiated EU/Canada Trade Agreement (CETA), which has not yet been ratified by all Member States. The timing of the meeting with Trudeau is good, as the Commission is due to present a legislative initiative to supply the Union with critical raw materials next Wednesday – and resource-rich Canada is likely to play a key role in this new Union strategy. HUH.