EU set to vote on trade deal with the US - Europe live

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Morning opening: EU parliament set to vote on tariff deal with US

Jakub Krupa

EU lawmakers are set to vote on the bloc’s tariff deal with US president Donald Trump today, after months of delays caused by uncertainty affecting transatlantic trade amid his repeated threats against Greenland and, more recently, Spain.

A member of the European Parliament looks on before a debate on the EU-US trade deal, in Brussels, Belgium.

The parliament will vote on whether to cut EU tariffs on some US imports – as a first step towards implementing the 2025 deal – but with additional safeguards, AFP said.

Lawmakers leading on trade have added several provisions: making an EU tariff reduction automatically lapse in March 2028, and tying tariff cuts on steel and aluminium goods to similar reductions by the US side, it explained.

EU’s economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis argued this morning that the deal with the US “steadied our trade relationship at a time of profound upheaval” and provided “predictability for European companies and consumers when they needed it most.”

“The deal is a deal, and our credibility depends on keeping our word.”

European Commissioner for Economy and Productivity Valdis Dombrovskis speaks, on the day of the joint debate on the EU-US trade deal at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.

But still many are not sure about the deal given the volatility on the US side under Trump.

“The only political value this agreement had to offer was stability and predictability, even if many say it’s an unfair deal. If it no longer even provides predictability, there’s no reason to support the deal, even if it has been improved,” said French MEP Pascal Canfin.

The vote is on around 11am local time (10am UK), with a policy debate on the proposal now under way.

Elsewhere, I will keep an eye on Denmark, as the outgoing prime minister Mette Frederiksen gets on with the task of finding a majority in the next Danish parliament, and on Brussels, where we are expecting to hear from Nato’s secretary general Mark Rutte on his 2025 report.

Several European leaders are also meeting in Helsinki, where the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, hosts a meeting of JEF, the Joint Expeditionary Force, operating in Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea region. UK’s Starmer, Norway’s Støre and Poland’s Tusk are among attendees, and Ukraine’s Zelenskyy will deliver a pre-recorded speech.

Lots for us to cover.

It’s Thursday, 26 March 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.

Good morning.

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'What Russia is doing is very concerning,' Sweden's PM warns

First heads of states and government are now arriving at the Joint Expeditionary Force meeting in Helsinki, where they are expected to talk about Ukraine, Russia, the Baltic Sea, and broader regional cooperation.

Sweden’s Ulf Kristersson is the first to show up and speak to reporters.

He speaks about the need to act against the Russian shadow fleet, stressing that any responses needs to be in accordance with international law, but “it [still] gives us a lot of room for us to act.”

But he warns that the Baltic Sea “has probably never in modern times been more challenged” with attempts to cut undersea cables or “bad seamanship,” but it “has probably also never been as protected as it is right now” through Nato.

“What Russia is doing is very concerning,” he says.

He also notes that Russia is benefiting from a higher oil price as a result of the Middle East crisis.

Proposed safeguards needed to guarantee certainty from 'relatively one-sided' deal, senior lawmaker says

Senior German MEP Bernd Lange, who led the work on the trade deal at earlier stages, told lawmakers earlier that the additional safeguards were needed as the original agreement, as signed in Scotland last year, was merely an outline of what would normally be included in a trade deal.

He also warned that the deal was “relatively one-sided,” but “maybe if we can improve it, we can live with it.”

But he also expressed doubts about the volatility of the US position, with repeated threats of new tariffs.

“So there has been a certain amount to uncertainty, … and that is why we do need to create some certainty, to have an agreement with sensible rules and ones that we can define,” he said.

He said the parliament needed to make sure that “if there is a big change on the other side that is unacceptable, we can then come back to our tariffs.”