BARCELONA, May 5 (Reuters) - Microsoft ( MSFT ) Chairman

Brad Smith has told the European Commission his company will

abide by European rules regardless of whether it agrees with

them or not, the Commission's Vice President Teresa Ribera said

on Monday.

In a chat with reporters where she addressed issues from

digital competition to trade and to a massive electricity outage

in Spain and Portugal last week, Ribera praised the approach.

"I think it's much more valuable to acknowledge that it's

about complying with the rules if we want to operate in this

market and we're going to respect them, rather than just saying

'you're targeting me because I'm American'," she said.

The Commission has seen both approaches in its meetings with

different players, she added.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) said last month it would sell its chat and video

app Teams separately from its Office software globally, six

months after it unbundled the two products in Europe in a bid to

avert a possible EU antitrust fine.

Salesforce ( CRM )-owned Slack complained to the European

Commission about Microsoft's ( MSFT ) tying of Teams to Office.

"We are talking about operators that have been accumulating

a significant concentration of power, and about a third of their

global revenues are produced in Europe," Ribera said.