Senior officials from Japan and the European Union will hold a series of talks in Tokyo this week focusing on the privatization of Japan's postal services, China's economy, the progress in Japan's bad-loan problem and the impact of EU expansion on bilateral relations.

The two sides will convene a meeting on regulatory reform Thursday, with the EU side planning to request that Japan apply the same supervisory structure to privatized postal-related entities and their private-sector competitors, according to EU officials.

"To establish a level playing field, the new corporations should be subject to the same supervisory structures and legal and regulatory requirements as the private sector," according to a list of EU policy proposals.