France and Germany, who bear the greatest responsibility for the Airbus row with the United States, should deal with Washington to scrap the related tariffs on EU goods from entering into force, a European Parliament member, Marco Zanni of Italy's Lega, told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th October, 2019) France and Germany, who bear the greatest responsibility for the Airbus row with the United States, should deal with Washington to scrap the related tariffs on EU goods from entering into force, a European Parliament member, Marco Zanni of Italy's Lega, told Sputnik.On Wednesday, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that the US can impose tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of EU goods as retaliation for the bloc's unlawful subsidies to Airbus. Washington is now requesting 10 percent tariffs on civil aircraft and 25 percent tariffs on a number of food products, including wines and Scotch whisky. Though the levies mainly target France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom as the countries forming consortium Airbus, the US anger did not spare Italian cheese either.
"Of course the economies of the EU will be affected by these new tariffs and the countries will have to deal with the US to reach an agreement trying to avoid the consequences. France and Germany are the most responsible of this decision. I would suggest these two countries to find a solution," Zanni, a member of the parliament's committee on economic and monetary affairs, said.
According the lawmaker, the tariffs are "very bad news" for all EU countries, especially at a time when they continue facing economic consequences of sanctions on Russia and Iran.
Only Italy, he says, expects to lose around 1 billion of Euros in profits in food production and the agricultural sector, and all is due to EU common trade policies.
"This situation shows all the limits of having a European trade policy centralized at the EU level. Our model based on export-led growth seems to be almost inadequate, as it has an evident limit: we depend, and in the case we pay, on the consequences of someone else's decision-making," he argued.
Italy now should try to reduce the effects of these tariffs "by all means, investing more and giving also temporary subsidies to those sectors suffering the most," Zanni concluded.
His counterpart in the European legislature, Gilles Lebreton of France's right-wing National Rally, in turn, told Sputnik that the best solution would be to "develop other outlets for our products, in order to reduce our dependence on the United States."
"I doubt that the EU will be able to persuade the United States to back down, but it must try," he explained.
Europe and the US have been entangled in the tariff war since May 2018, when the latter slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from the EU. Back then, the bloc retaliated with 25 percent tariffs on US motorcycles and other items, including whisky.
This time, Brussels has wowed to retaliate again if the tariffs take effect. Moreover, the WTO is expected to rule on Europe's complaint against US subsidies to Boeing early next year, with the bloc asking for a similar amount of "countermeasures."
