Brussels pitches English-first approval to speed up EU trade deals

BRUSSELS — The European Commission wants to cut almost a year off the time it takes to approve trade deals by giving the English version of agreements a head start, allowing political approval to move ahead before translations into the EU’s two dozen languages are finalized. 

The EU is under pressure to raise its trade game as the U.S. and China close faster deals, and President Donald Trump wields tariffs to exert geopolitical leverage. But, as the bloc acts to diversify its trading relationships, the process of checking and translating deals can hold up its own agreements for as long as two years.

The EU executive outlined a draft plan to capitals earlier this month that would telescope the time for agreements to enter into force by streamlining their translation, according to an internal presentation seen by POLITICO. 

A key element of the pitch for an “accelerated procedure” is completing the legal process with capitals and the European Parliament based only on the negotiated English-language version of a deal — instead of the translated texts in all 24 EU languages. 

Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič is expected to present the idea when the bloc’s trade ministers meet in Cyprus this Friday. 

The lengthy internal process that runs from the conclusion of trade talks until the deal enters into force routinely takes about 23 months. The Commission wants to slash that to 13 months, under a tentative timeline included in the presentation. 

That’s a step in the right direction — but not nearly ambitious enough, according to exporters in Germany, Europe’s largest economy.

“Reducing the negotiation period from 23 to 13 months is progress, but it is not enough. If Europe truly wants to reduce dependencies and diversify its trading partners, political decisions, legal reviews, and translations must be significantly faster,” said Dirk Jandura, president of the Federation of German Wholesale, Foreign Trade and Services (BGA).

“Economic reality is measured in months — not years,” said Jandura. 

Frontloaded scrubbing

Legal “scrubbing” — a time-consuming process that ensures both parties agree on the precise meaning of a text and not just the overall commitments — would be “partly frontloaded during negotiations” and take place in parallel with the Commission’s adoption of the text, as well its presentation to the Council.

The streamlined procedure reflects an “urgent need to diversify our trade partners” and to reap “the benefits of our trade agreements without delay,” the Commission writes in its seven-page presentation, adding this would only be applied to trade agreements that fall under the exclusive competence of the EU. 

The EU’s recent agreements with India and Indonesia would be test cases of this accelerated procedure.

“It will be taken up on legal scrubbing on a fast-track basis as we discussed … and translated into 24 languages simultaneously. We do hope that we should be able to celebrate the entry into force of this agreement within calendar 2026,” Indian trade chief Piyush Goyal said after leaders sealed the EU-India trade deal last month. 

Prior agreements with New Zealand and, most recently, the Latin American Mercosur bloc, had to be translated into all 24 EU languages before they could be formally signed.

The plan, which is still in its early stages, could set up “linguistic difficulties” amongst EU countries, three EU diplomats said, for instance if some large countries insist they require a translation alongside the English one.

Thorsten Mumme in Berlin contributed to this report.