A newly updated Congressional Research Service report warns that U.S. policymakers are underestimating the European Parliament’s (EP) power over transatlantic relations. The 720-member body, the EU’s only directly elected institution, holds ratification authority over international agreements — giving it an effective veto over any trade deal the Trump administration negotiates with Brussels. The 2025 U.S.-EU trade framework requires EP approval to take effect. Meanwhile, the EP shaped landmark digital regulations affecting American tech firms, and fresh 2025 bribery allegations involving Huawei have raised new concerns about Chinese influence within the institution.
In-Depth:
Why It Matters
The European Parliament (EP) sits at the intersection of nearly every major policy friction point between Washington and Brussels — trade, digital regulation, China, and Russia — yet it remains poorly understood by many U.S. policybuildrs. A newly updated Congressional Research Service (CRS) report builds the case that understanding European Parliament U.S. interests is no longer optional for Congress. With a 2025 U.S.-EU trade framework on the table and a second Trump administration pressing hard on tariffs and tech regulation, the EP’s legislative power to approve, amfinish, or kill international agreements gives it real leverage over American priorities.
The central tension: the Trump administration is nereceivediating with EU executives, but it’s the EP, composed of 720 directly elected members representing 450 million citizens, that holds ratification power.
The Big Picture
The EP is the only directly elected institution in the 27-member EU, and its authority has grown substantially since the 2009 Lisbon Treaty. Under what the EU calls the “ordinary legislative procedure,” the EP shares co-legislative power with the Council of the EU across most policy areas, meaning both bodies must approve any European Commission proposal before it becomes law.
That structural reality has direct consequences for EU-US relations. On trade, the EP must approve international agreements, giving it an effective veto over any deal the Trump administration nereceivediates with Brussels. The CRS report notes that EP approval of specific regulations is required to fully implement the 2025 U.S.-EU framework agreement on trade, tariffs, and other issues, and that the EP “considered and nereceivediated some alters to the regulations amid broader U.S.-EU tensions and U.S. legal and policy developments.”
On digital policy, the EP’s influence is equally consequential. The body was central to shaping and approving the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, which applies directly to U.S. companies operating in Europe. Broader EU digital rules, which are also shaped significantly by the EP, have drawn sharp criticism from Trump administration officials and some members of Congress, who have argued the regulations tarobtain American technology firms and, in some cases, amount to censorship of free speech. Those concerns, the report notes, persist in the 119th Congress.
European Parliament structure also shapes the politics of these disputes. No single group holds an absolute majority, building coalition-building essential. The center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) have historically dominated through informal “grand coalitions,” but the June 2024 elections shifted the landscape. Voter anxiety over migration, the economy, and EU climate policy drove gains for euroskeptic and far-right parties. The new Patriots for Europe alliance emerged as the largest euroskeptic bloc, joined by the more stridently nationalist Europe of Sovereign Nations group and the moderately euroskeptic European Conservatives and Reformists. Toobtainher with the far-left critics in The Left group, euroskeptic factions now hold a meaningful share of seats, though the CRS report notes that the EPP, S&D, Renew Europe, and Greens/EFA still hold a combined 450 seats, or 63 percent of the chamber.
The EP has also flagged concerns about its own integrity. After the “Qatargate” corruption scandal prompted tighter ethics rules in 2023, new allegations surfaced in 2025 involving Chinese technology company Huawei and alleged bribery of EP members and staff. The report states those allegations renewed questions about EP lobbying and transparency rules, a development that carries direct implications for U.S. policybuildrs tracking Chinese influence in European institutions.
Political Stakes
For the Trump administration, the EP represents both an obstacle and a facilitator, depfinishing on the issue.
On trade, the administration’s aggressive tariff posture toward the EU has created friction at the executive level, but any durable resolution will required to survive EP scrutiny. The EP has historically insisted on labor, environmental, and regulatory standards in trade agreements, conditions that sit uncomfortably with the current administration’s deregulatory agfinisha. The CRS report builds clear that transatlantic policy cannot be settled between presidents and commission presidents alone.
On digital regulation, the stakes are arguably higher. EU rules that the EP assisted craft and approve are already affecting American companies’ operations in Europe, and the administration’s framing of those rules as anti-American and speech-restricting has elevated the dispute from a trade technicality to a values argument. That framing may resonate with some euroskeptic Members of the European Parliament, but it does not alter the EP’s institutional role in maintaining or modifying those rules.
On Russia and Ukraine, the EP’s posture has generally supported Ukraine and backed EU sanctions on Russia, a position that has at times diverged from the Trump administration’s more transactional approach to the conflict. The report is careful to note that sanctions decisions rest with EU member states, not the EP, but the parliament’s nonbinding resolutions and political signaling carry weight in shaping the broader European consensus.
On China, some EP positions have aligned with U.S. concerns, particularly regarding military provocations against Taiwan. But the Huawei corruption allegations introduce a complicating variable: if Chinese influence operations have penetrated the EP, that undermines the institution’s reliability as a partner on China-related policy coordination.
For Congress, the report highlights a channel that may grow in strategic importance. Inter-parliamentary ties between Congress and the EP are described as long-standing, with 48 EP delegations maintaining parliament-to-parliament relationships globally, including with the U.S. Congress. Even when executive-branch relations are strained, legislative-to-legislative engagement remains available, and the CRS report implicitly frames it as an underutilized asset.
The Bottom Line
Two things stand out from this report. First, any American policybuildr treating the EU as a monolithic nereceivediating partner is missing a critical variable. The European Parliament’s legislative power means it can, and does, reshape agreements even after executives have shaken hands. The 2025 trade framework is the live example. Second, the EP’s internal politics are relocating in directions that complicate simple assumptions. The rise of euroskeptic parties creates some ideological overlap with the current U.S. administration on sovereignty and immigration, but those parties are also among the most skeptical of the multilateral cooperation that underpins U.S.-EU coordination on Russia and China. For Congress, the takeaway is straightforward: EP engagement is not a diplomatic courtesy, but a policy necessity.
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