The surprisingly candid comments contradict the stance of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has insisted the unbalanced pact, which set a 15 percent base tariff on European exports, had nothing to do with maintaining U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no linkage between the two,\u201d von der Leyen\u00a0said during a press conference<\/a>\u00a0in Finland on Friday, when asked whether security concerns had swayed the EU to agree to the July deal. She defended the pact, which has been\u00a0criticized in some European capitals<\/a>\u00a0as an embarrassing capitulation to American demands, as \u201ca good trade deal.\u201d<\/p>\n But Costa, who represents the interests of EU governments in Brussels, acknowledged \u201cthe frustration felt by many Europeans, who perceive the Union as having been too passive in shaping this summer\u2019s developments on trade, relations with the U.S. and Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n He also fired a warning shot at Washington, which has attacked the EU over its tech regulations, arguing they amount to regulatory overreach and censorship. Trump threatened last week<\/a>\u00a0to slap tariffs on nations whose digital rules \u201cdiscriminate\u201d against American firms.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur partners \u2014 including the U.S. \u2014 must know that the EU will always defend its sovereignty, its citizens, its companies and its values,\u201d Costa said. \u201cDiplomacy should never be mistaken for complacency.\u201d<\/p>\n A revolt has slowly been building inside the Commission as top officials voice their discontent at the EU\u2019s response to American saber-rattling and Trump\u2019s continued threats.<\/p>\n Teresa Ribera, the European Commission\u2019s executive vice president,\u00a0told the Financial Times<\/a> on Friday that the EU \u201ccannot be subject to the will of a third country,\u201d while Industrial Strategy Commissioner St\u00e9phane S\u00e9journ\u00e9 said last week<\/a> that the EU-U.S. trade deal should be reviewed if Trump\u2019s \u201cintentions\u201d turned into \u201cdeclarations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The surprisingly candid comments contradict the stance of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has insisted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[11783,768,28,2437,3677,5293,32,2000,8954,299,5187,1699,1214,769,9890,2444,811,13492,17566,479,7162,1201,1219,6717,657,49,1220,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-389633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-antonio-costa","9":"tag-borders","10":"tag-buildings","11":"tag-companies","12":"tag-digital","13":"tag-diplomacy","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-eu","16":"tag-eu-us-trade-talks","17":"tag-europe","18":"tag-european","19":"tag-european-union","20":"tag-exports","21":"tag-finland","22":"tag-industrial-strategy","23":"tag-regulatory","24":"tag-security","25":"tag-slovenia","26":"tag-stephane-sejourne","27":"tag-tariffs","28":"tag-teresa-ribera","29":"tag-trade","30":"tag-trade-war","31":"tag-transatlantic-relations","32":"tag-ukraine","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","35":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115129952777760335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}