Tension over digital regulation clouds ongoing talks to launch a new EU-U.S. tech “dialog.”
Pieter Haeck, Mathieu Pollet
“Our position is very clear,” Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters on Monday. “The EU and its member states have the sovereign right to regulate any economic activities on their territory.”
“The EU will respond swiftly and decisively,” Regnier added, should Washington follow through with “unilateral measures targeting such legitimate policies.”
Since Trump’s return to the White House, the U.S. administration has ramped up attacks on the bloc’s tech laws, accusing them of unfairly targeting American firms.
Trump’s top envoy in Brussels, Andrew Puzder, told POLITICO in March that Washington wants the tech dialogue to include the EU’s tech rules, which U.S. companies say are too burdensome.
The EU executive recently unveiled a long-awaited legislative package designed to reduce Europe’s years-long reliance on U.S. technology, which is increasingly seen as a strategic vulnerability. The plan is a long game: boosting European tech champions while giving governments new ways to shut U.S. players out of the most sensitive parts of the public-sector market.
“Protectionist measures in upcoming EU tech sovereignty laws risk undermining our partnership,” a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said in a statement to POLITICO, recalling the recent trade deal that “requires eliminating non-tariff barriers to trade.”
