EU standards on food are 'not up for negotiation', EU Trade Commissioner Šefčovič tells Euronews

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EU standards on food are 'not up for negotiation', EU Trade Commissioner Šefčovič tells Euronews  In an interview with Euronews, Maroš Šefčovič has called for a fair and balanced deal with the United States amid a framework of tariff negotiations.  READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/05/21/eu-standards-on-food-are-not-up-for-negotiation-eu-trade-commissioner-sefcovic-tells-euron  Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages

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00:00EU trade negotiator Maro Sefkovic has confirmed EU standards on food safety are not up for negotiation in the talks with the U.S. over tariffs.

00:10The EU and U.S. are locked in talks due to expire in early July after U.S. President Donald Trump issued a 90-day window to negotiate.

00:21Washington has decried EU safety standards on agriculture products as one of the reasons for the tariff war.

00:27I think we've been quite clear that we clearly would preserve our regulatory autonomy.

00:34And if I follow a little bit the discussion in the United States of America, there is also a lot of talk about having healthier food,

00:45what should be the composition of the food processing and so on and so forth.

00:50And I think we already had this discussion in Europe and we are very proud of our health and safety standards.

00:57If it comes to food, if it comes to agri-food production, we are going clearly to stick to them.

01:03So that's not up for negotiation standards?

01:05I think if it comes to health and safety issues, I mean, clearly these are not up for negotiations.

01:11Meanwhile, the EU negotiator says he is pushing for a fair and balanced deal with the U.S.

01:17But he says the EU stands ready to implement up to 95 billion euros of countermeasures if negotiations fail.

01:25We are already paying 10 percent tariff.

01:28We are already paying 25 percent tariff for steel.

01:31We are already paying 25 percent for cars.

01:34And we really believe that this is simply not fair.

01:37So we want to resolve it through the negotiated solutions.

01:42But, of course, we are also preparing alternatively we would have to protect the European jobs and European companies.

01:49And, therefore, we started the consultations on eventual rebalancing measures.

01:54A new series of U.S. products could be targeted for potential EU tariffs,

01:59including aerospace champion Boeing or alcohol products like bourbon.

02:03You can listen to the full interview on the Europe Conversation this Friday.

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