EU trade chief bound for US, seeking deal fair for both sides

By Foo Yun Chee and Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union's trade chief will hold negotiations this week in Washington to avert higher U.S. tariffs just days before a July 9 deadline, saying he wanted a fair deal as the EU executive dismissed any forced changes to EU tech rules.

European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic told reporters he would travel to Washington after talks in Turkey on Tuesday and seek meetings with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Wednesday and Thursday.

Sefcovic said the EU had received the first drafts of proposals from the United States for an eventual agreement.

"The ninth of July is round the corner so for me, it's always a good sign when we move from the exchange of views into the drafting process," he said.

Sefcovic said the EU was pushing for a deal on import levies that was "fair for both sides" and gave more predictability to businesses.

Earlier, the European Commission, the EU's executive, pushed back against speculation that the 27-member EU's landmark tech regulatory regime could be included in the EU-U.S. negotiations and subsequently watered down.

EU concerns mounted after U.S. President Donald Trump broke off trade talks with Canada in response to Canada's digital services tax, accusing Ottawa of "copying the European Union". Canada subsequently rescinded the tax.

The EU has two pieces of recent legislation targeted by the Trump administration.

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) seeks to rein in the power of U.S. tech giants Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms and Microsoft, as well as Booking.com and China's ByteDance.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) requires big online platforms to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content.

"Our legislation will not be changed. The DMA and the DSA are not on the table in the trade negotiations with the U.S.," Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told a daily news conference.

He said the EU would not accept interference from foreign governments in its landmark rules, which come with hefty fines for violations.

"We are not going to adjust the implementation of our legislation based on the actions of third countries. If we started to do that, then we would have to do it with numerous third countries," Regnier said.

The EU handed out its first fines to Apple and Meta earlier this year and both risk further daily fines if regulators find that they have yet to comply with the rules in the coming months.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee and Bart Meijer, Makini Brice and Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Louise Heavens and Mark Heinrich)