According to three people with insight into the negotiations, exceptions will be made for, among other things, aircraft, spirits, and medical technology products.
The EU is said to be willing to agree to the tariff level, which corresponds to the one the US concluded with Japan, in order to avoid President Donald Trump's threat of 30-percent tariffs from August 1.
The European Commission is said to have informed the member states on Wednesday after talks with American counterparts, the newspaper writes.
During the time the negotiations have been ongoing since April, the EU's exporters have paid an additional 10 percent tariff on goods sent to the US. This is in addition to the existing tariffs, which average 4.8 percent.
Car tariffs fall
The sources state that they have perceived it as if the minimum tariff of 15 percent should include the existing tariffs, which makes an agreement more attractive to the EU. The tariffs on, for example, cars, which are now 27.5 percent, would fall to 15 percent.
The EU will nonetheless continue to prepare a possible package of retaliatory tariffs of 93 billion euros if an agreement is not reached by August 1.
An American official says at the same time that the situation in the negotiations may change.
The information comes after Trump, following the agreement with Japan, said to journalists:
Europe is coming in tomorrow, and the next day we have some others coming in, he says.
On Wednesday, the EU's Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic had tariff talks with the US Trade Minister Howard Lutnick, according to a spokesperson for the European Commission.
Bessent positive
US Finance Minister Scott Bessent expressed himself positively about the negotiating situation:
I think we're making good progress with the EU, he says on Wednesday according to the news agency Bloomberg.
Better than how they have gone before, he adds.
The Trump administration has since spring introduced a long series of new tariffs on EU goods exported to the US.
The EU has so far not announced any countermeasures. But French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz are meeting in Berlin to discuss this issue on Wednesday.
Correction: In an earlier version, there was a misleading translation of Donald Trump's quote
The attempts to reach an agreement on new trade terms between the EU and the US have been ongoing since Donald Trump's tariff shock on April 2. During the summer, however, the temperature in the talks has risen, ahead of Trump's latest deadline – August 1 – approaching.
Trump has threatened to raise his punitive tariffs on all EU goods to 30 percent if there is no agreement on something else by August 1. The punitive tariffs – which Trump has described as a retaliation for the US having such a large deficit in merchandise trade with the EU – were introduced in April and are currently under Trump's so-called tariff pause at 10 percent.
In addition to this, Trump has introduced 25-percent tariffs on cars and car parts and 50-percent tariffs on steel and aluminum.
