Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 14 December 2022 - Strasbourg

EU response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (debate)

  Bernd Lange, on behalf of the S&D Group. – Madam President, Madam Executive Vice—President Margrethe, I guess, there’s no doubt about it, we need a partnership with the United States in this time of trouble all round, on the green transition, on the war in Ukraine, as Margrethe said.

But, of course, partnerships need also trust. And my feeling at the moment, and I’m really sad about that, that the behaviour of the United States in the last two months is really a push away from a real good partnership.

‘Might makes it right’ might be the principle of some people in the United States, and this is really undermining our cooperation. Margrethe mentioned the very good cooperation at the TTC, but we need also good cooperation on the green transition and it should not lead to a substitute race. We should really stick to the international trading rules and we should defend this. We have a lot of tools in our toolbox to defend the rules-based trading system, and we should use them if the United States is not able to cooperate in a proper way.