EU to intensify efforts with U.S. to resolve aircraft dispute

The European Union (EU) will intensify its efforts with the United States to put an end to the aircraft dispute, the EU's Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said on Thursday, reported Xinhua.

"The EU will intensify efforts with the U.S. to find a negotiated solution to ongoing trade irritants. I will continue my engagement with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. A resolution of the aircraft dispute should be our focus," Hogan said in a tweet.

He reacted to Washington's decision to retain tariffs on aircraft manufacturer Airbus and European products over what the U.S. claimed to be non-compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) decisions.

The U.S. government announced on Wednesday it decided to maintain its 15 percent tariffs on Airbus aircraft and 25 percent tariffs on other European goods, despite moves by the EU to resolve a long-standing dispute over aircraft subsidies.

The decision came after the EU said in July that Airbus had agreed with France and Spain to remove contentious benefits granted to the aircraft manufacturer.

The EU had said that this addressed the last remaining measures condemned by the WTO and thus removed any grounds for the U.S. to maintain its countermeasures on EU exports.

But Washington did not agree, with Lighthizer saying that the EU had not taken actions necessary to come into compliance with WTO decisions. He signaled that Washington would initiate a new process to try to reach a long-term solution.

The long-standing issue between the EU and the U.S. began in 2004, when the U.S. accused France, Spain and Germany -- also known as the "Airbus member states" -- of providing illegal subsidies and grants to support the production of a range of Airbus products.

Following prolonged legal proceedings, the WTO allowed the U.S. to take countermeasures against European exports worth up to 7.5 billion U.S. dollars in October 2019. The basis for this was a 2018 decision that found that the EU and the "Airbus member states" had not fully complied with previous WTO rulings with regard to Repayable Launch Investment for the A350 and A380 programs.