BRUSSELS — A French push to add safeguards to last year’s EU-U.S. trade deal has hit resistance from a German-led majority of member countries determined to preserve the original agreement.

That means the Council of the EU, representing the bloc’s 27 member countries, will likely take an unchanged position into talks on May 6 with the European Parliament, which wants to attach a series of conditions to the deal concluded last July in Turnberry, Scotland.

Ambassadors representing the EU’s 27 member countries met on Wednesday to review a first round of interinstitutional negotiations to hash out a compromise that can finally take effect. The call by France to revise enabling legislation — which envisages that the EU would scrap tariffs on U.S. industrial goods — has failed to attract significant support, EU diplomats said.

The European Parliament, like France, wants to add tweaks to the deal to take into account global developments since President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen shook hands on the pact at Trump’s Scottish golf resort. The changed situation includes Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, as well as a Supreme Court decision that struck down his original tariffs.

The proposed safeguards include a “sunrise” clause, which would make the removal of the tariffs on U.S. goods contingent on scaling back American tariffs on steel derivative products, and a “sunset” clause under which the deal would expire on March 31, 2028 — some 10 months before Trump is due to leave office.

There’s also an emergency brake that would automatically suspend the deal if, for example, the U.S. threatens Europe’s territorial integrity.

POLITICO spoke with 12 EU diplomats before and after Wednesday’s meeting who indicated that a majority on the Council rejects the European Parliament’s more confrontational stance with the U.S. These include Germany along with Italy, the Netherlands, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Their views are in line with the stance of the Commission, which negotiates trade deals on behalf of the EU’s 27 member countries. In an interview with POLITICO last week, Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič warned against overloading the discussion with new demands, stressing that “a deal is a deal.”

France breaks ranks

France, however, stands out as close to the European Parliament’s negotiating position. Paris backs both the sunrise clause and the time limit on the deal and argues that the situation has changed since the Council adopted its negotiating position last November.

Significantly, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Trump’s so-called Liberation Day tariffs from April 2025 means the EU now has the same 10 percent baseline tariff as the rest of the world. However, when the Commission concluded negotiations last year with the U.S. — which set a tariff ceiling of 15 percent on most goods — Washington promised the EU lower tariffs than most other countries.

Other member countries such as Spain are in favor of the sunset clause — but would like to see it pushed back to a later date, and don’t back other safeguards.

“We shouldn’t give the U.S. the feeling that we put the deal per se in question,” said one EU diplomat from a country that opposes the safeguards. (Like others they were granted anonymity to comment on the closed-door discussions.) “The main goal should be to get it rather quickly off the table.”

The talks within the Council come as trade chief Šefčovič visits Washington, D.C., to meet his counterparts in the Trump administration as well as senior U.S. lawmakers. Šefčovič, as the EU’s key interlocutor with the U.S., has consistently pushed for quick ratification of the deal.

Ticking clock

The lack of clarity on the future of U.S. tariffs complicates the intra-EU talks.

The White House’s current tariff regime is due to expire in July. The administration is expected to replace it with new duties based on investigations under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

One person with knowledge of the discussions said EU ambassadors will hold another round of talks on the Turnberry deal next week.

France, due to its size and its history as a founding EU member, holds considerable sway within the Council of the EU. But it appears to lack the numbers to form a blocking minority.

That means for now, the German-led majority in the Council retains the upper hand as it defends the Turnberry accord and the subsequent joint statement that formalized it.

Still, the European Parliament’s chief negotiator, Bernd Lange, told POLITICO he was pleased to see divisions within the Council.

“There is not a united front,” the German Social Democrat said, adding this meant there was “room for negotiation.”