The Parliament froze ratification of the agreement, signed by Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in July, after the U.S. president threatened tariffs on European allies backing Greenland.
Lead negotiators will meet Feb. 4 to decide next steps, the Parliament’s International Trade Committee Chair Bernd Lange said.
At the meeting, lawmakers broadly agreed that the deal should go ahead now Trump has backtracked. But political groups are divided on whether they should first play hardball with the U.S. and demand more details on the NATO-Trump agreement, according to four people familiar with the talks.
The center-right European People’s Party wants to “move forward” as soon as possible as it is “best for businesses … to create some more stability,” said the EPP’s top trade lawmaker, Jörgen Warborn. The right-wing ECR group and the far-right Patriots also pushed for work on the deal to continue.
But the Socialists, the liberals of Renew and the Greens want to play it tougher, and want to see more details of the Greenland deal first, pointing to Trump’s unpredictability.
“The guy threatened with tariffs, then he did not,” S&D’s van Brempt said, adding that the Socialists want to know where the European Commission stands on using the Anti-Coercion Instrument — it’s most powerful trade weapon — that it moved closer to readying before Trump walked back his tariff threats.