In a letter seen by Euronews and despatched to the United States Congress, Vice -President Teresa Ribera and Henna Virkkunen defend digital laws, which assist utilized to firms no matter the place they’re. It arrives a day after the deputies additionally wrote to the US authorities by justifying the applying of DMA.
The vice -presidents Teresa Ribera and the Henna Virkkunen have insisted that the Digital Markets Act (DMA) doesn’t flip to US firms and applies Agnostatically to digital platforms designated in accordance with its guidelines as “Gatekeemper”, in a letter that solutions the questions of the United States Congress seen by Euronews.
“The standards for the designation of the Gatekeeper are based mostly on quantitative thresholds recognized and clear objectively. They don’t enable the Commission to discriminate any firm based mostly on the place of its headquarters “, the 2 commissioners wrote within the letter, despatched on Thursday, including:” This is confirmed by the truth that two of the gatekeers who’ve to date been designated below the DMA are based mostly within the European Union and in China respectively “.
In 2023 and 2024, the Commission recognized seven gatekeemper pursuant to the Digital Markets Act: American Platforms Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft; Chinese bytedance; and Dutch Booking.com.
The DMA has been the topic of a number of assaults since Donald Trump has risen to energy within the United States, the final coming from the Congress of the United States wherein two representatives, Jim Jordan and Scott Fitzgerald, despatched a letter that questioned European digital laws, claiming that the DMA focused the US firms and calling Teresa Ribera, the commissioner for the EU competitors, to justify the EU competitors, to justify the EU competitors. Statute.
“We write to precise our issues that the DMA can direct American firms,” wrote the 2 representatives on February 23, including that the fines collected pursuant to EU laws had been equal to European taxes. They additionally said that the DMA with innovation hinders: “Some modern services provided by American firms is not going to be launched within the EU or are restricted as a result of DMA and different European legal guidelines and rules”.
“The DMA maintains the doorways open to the following wave of innovation in important digital markets,” replied Ribera and Virkkunen to the Congressmen, including: “It permits firms to develop into extra unbiased of huge digital platforms by way of distribution of their services and creating modern enterprise fashions. It additionally offers extra selections for shoppers.”
The DMA was initially designed to fight the area of some technological giants on digital markets.
“Only in instances the place a gatekeeper doesn’t respect the duty pursuant to the DMA regardless of committing itself right into a regulatory dialogue, the applying for sanctions can develop into crucial,” continued the letter, including “the target of the applying of the DMA, since every other EU proper is to ensure compliance to not emit fines”.
The Commission has began a sequence of investigations pursuant to the DMA, whose outcomes needs to be identified within the coming weeks. American firms below the purpose embrace Apple, Alphabet and Meta.
Wednesday Meps led by Stéphanie Yon-Curtin (France/Renew), Andreas Schwab (Germany/Epp) and Anna Cavazzini (Germany/Verdi) wrote to us Procurator General Pamela Bondi and secretary of the United States Commerce Howard Lutnick defending the query of the DMA, in one other letter from Euronew.
“Many American firms are usually not solely benefiting from the DMA, however in addition they actively ask for its software”, they wrote, citing “Epic Games who’s launching another App Store to Apple and Google within the EU, and Meta, who seeks interoperability with Apple to develop new merchandise, are to achieve from these new guidelines”. The letter said that Netflix, Disney and different streaming firms, “presently burdened by the excessive commissions of Apple and Google, would additionally profit from a extra honest aggressive panorama within the area of DMA, similar to Google within the cloud computing or duckduckgo sector in on-line analysis”.
