Image: European Union
Deal comes after frosty relations threatened to postpone first meeting of high-level council
The EU and United States have agreed to coordinate approaches on global technology and trade issues at the inaugural meeting of their Trade and Technology Council, after a major political row threatened to postpone the event.
A week ahead of the meeting, the EU hinted that it might pull out due to the US agreeing a nuclear submarine deal with Australia that killed off another submarine deal Australia had agreed with France.
In the end the meeting did occur in Pittsburgh in the US on 29 September.
European Commission executive vice-presidents Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis (pictured right and centre, respectively), alongside US secretaries of state and commerce Antony Blinken and Gina Raimondo, and US trade representative Katherine Tai, agreed to deepen their relations in technology cooperation.
They said the powers would work together on areas including screening foreign investments, export of technologies that can be used for military as well as civilian purposes, trustworthy artificial intelligence and semiconductor supply chains. They have set up 10 working groups to this end, including ones on climate change, supply chains, ICT and data governance, all four of which will work on areas including research.