While the EU and the U.S. have increased the pace of talks since the end of May, Brussels is under pressure to find an agreement with Washington as Trump threatens to impose a 50 percent tariff on all its goods as of July 9.
“We will from our side definitely not speculate on a potential outcome, on what may or not be affected,” said Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier on Monday when asked whether EU legislation, such as the bloc’s green and digital rules, were still red lines in talks with Trump.
“We are deeply engaged. We want to find a fair and balanced deal, [a] mutually beneficial deal … I will not, here from this podium, prejudge what can be or is not in this deal,” Regnier told reporters at a briefing in Brussels.
The comments came after the Wall Street Journal reported that Brussels and Washington are nearing a draft agreement on non-tariff barriers, under which the EU would grant American companies exceptions to the EU’s flagship Digital Markets Act (DMA), as well as to environmental laws such as the bloc’s carbon border tax.
The details of the draft agreement, circulated by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, would effectively gut the EU’s tech competition rulebook, which was expressly designed to regulate how U.S. Big Tech companies should operate on the European market.
“Putting the DMA on hold to placate the United States would be an unacceptable capitulation,” said Stéphanie Yon-Courtin, a French MEP from the Renew party. She warned it would set “a dangerous precedent” if the EU allows countries to pressure it into rewriting laws after they’ve been agreed.
