Outcomes of the inaugural meeting of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council

As the cooperation under the TTC inter alia includes consultations on legislative and regulatory developments, compliance and enforcement approaches, it will be important for stakeholders to closely follow the TTC’s work and participate in the events for stakeholders.

Main goals and working methods

The TTC currently comprises 10 working groups led or co-led by relevant Departments, Services or Agencies. Five key areas of joint work have been identified for the coming months:

Future scope of work

In a nutshell, each of the 10 working groups has been asked by the TTC to carry out the following work ahead of the next meeting:

Working Group 1 - Technology Standards: is tasked to develop approaches for coordination and cooperation in critical and emerging technology standards including AI and other emerging technologies.

Working Group 2 - Climate and Clean Tech: is tasked (i) to identify opportunities, measures and incentives to support technology development, transatlantic trade and investment in climate-neutral technologies, products and services, including collaboration in third countries, research and innovation; and (ii) to jointly explore the methodologies, tools, and technologies for calculating embedded greenhouse gas emissions in global trade.

Working Group 3 - Secure Supply Chains: Alongside the dedicated track on semiconductors, this working group is tasked to focus on advancing respective supply chain resilience and security of supply in key sectors for the green and digital transition and for securing the protection of citizens.

Working Group 4 - Information and Communication Technology and Services (ICTS) Security and Competitiveness: is tasked inter alia to continue to work towards ensuring security, diversity, interoperability and resilience across the ICT supply chain, including sensitive and critical areas such as 5G, undersea cables, data centres, and cloud infrastructure.

Working Group 5 - Data Governance and Technology Platforms: is tasked to exchange information on (i) EU-US respective approaches to data governance and technology platform governance, seeking consistency and interoperability where feasible; as well as (ii) regarding current and future regulations in both the European Union and the United States with a goal of effectively addressing shared concerns; and (iii) discussing common approaches to the role of cloud infrastructure and services.

Working Group 6 - Misuse of Technology Threatening Security and Human Rights: is tasked to (i) combat arbitrary or unlawful surveillance, including on social media platforms; (ii) explore building an effective mechanism to respond to Internet shutdowns, in conjunction with the G7 and others likeminded countries; (iii) work to protect human rights defenders online; (iv) increase transatlantic cooperation to address foreign information manipulation, including disinformation, and interference with democratic processes, while upholding freedom of expression and privacy rights; and (v) address social scoring systems and collaborate on projects furthering the development of trustworthy AI.

Working Group 7 - Export Controls: is tasked to (i) engage in technical consultations on legislative and regulatory developments; and (ii) exchange information on risk assessments and licensing good practices, as well as on compliance and enforcement approaches; (iii) promote convergent control approaches on sensitive dual-use technologies; and (iv) perform joint industry outreach on dual-use export controls.

Working Group 8 - Investment Screening: is tasked to focus: (i) on exchanging information on investment trends impacting security, including strategic trends with respect to industries concerned, origin of investments, and types of transactions; (ii) on best practices, including with respect to risk analysis and the systems for risk mitigation measures with a focus on sensitive technologies and related sensitive data, which may include personal data; and (iii) together with other groups develop a holistic view of the policy tools addressing risks related to specific sensitive technologies. This working group is also expected to conduct a joint virtual outreach event for stakeholders.

Working Group 9 - Promoting Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) Access to and Use of Digital Tools: is tasked (i) to launch outreach activities that will offer opportunities for SMEs and underserved communities, and their representatives, to share their needs, experience, strategies and best practices with policymakers; and (ii) to develop recommendations for EU and US policymakers to implement that will help to accelerate access to and the uptake of digital technologies.

Working Group 10 - Global Trade Challenges: is tasked to focus on challenges from non-market economic policies and practices, avoiding new and unnecessary technical barriers in products and services of emerging technology, promoting and protecting labour rights and decent work, and following further consultations, trade and environment issues.

Next steps

In connection with stakeholder consultations, the TTC intends to separately make available points of contact, where the stakeholders may submit their input, comments and view. In addition, regular exchanges with stakeholders are to be organised through diverse channels, both at the level of working groups and political principals, as well as by each of the respective parties or jointly. Within the export control cooperation, a joint EU-US virtual outreach event for stakeholders is for example planned for 27 October 2021.

Future meetings of the TTC will focus on defining ambitions in further important areas such as data governance and tech platforms, clean technology, SME access to digital, ICT security and competitiveness as well as combatting the misuse of technology.

For further information contact Dr. Natallia Karniyevich

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