The Digital Market Act (DMA), which
prohibits anti-competitive practices on digital markets, is not
designed to target American Big Tech, but to ensure fair
competition between large digital operators.
The vice presidents of the European Commission, Henna Virkkunen
and Teresa Ribera, thus respond to the request for clarification
from the chairman of the US House Judiciary Committee, Jim
Jordan, on the application of the DMA.
The letter expressed "concern" that the European regulation
seems to target American technology giants and criticized in
particular the sanctions provided for in the regulation which,
according to Washington, "seem to have two objectives: to force
companies to follow European standards at a global level and to
impose a sort of European tax on American companies".
In their reply, Competition Commissioner Ribera and Technology
Sovereignty Commissioner Virkkunen clarify that the DMA "does
not target American companies", the purpose of its application
of the DMA is to "ensure compliance, not to issue fines".
The two vice-presidents then say they are certain that the EU
and the United States share "the common goal of preventing the
harmful effects of monopolization".
A group of MEPs, including Stéphanie Yon-Courtin, Chair of the
EP Competition Working Group and DMA rapporteur for the Economic
Affairs Committee (Econ), Andreas Schwab, Chair of the EP DMA
Working Group and DMA rapporteur for the Internal Market
Committee (Imco), share the same opinion. and Anna Cavazzini,
chair of the IMCO committee, who in a letter to US Secretary of
Commerce Howard Lutnick and US Attorney General Pamela Bondi,
rejects the nationality argument, arguing that the DMA's goal is
"to ensure free and fair digital markets within the European
Union (EU), to the benefit of European consumers and companies
around the world, including American ones".
The MEPs then brand as "completely false" the argument that the
DMA would represent a barrier to innovation, arguing that on the
contrary it "promotes a competitive ecosystem in which
innovative companies" can innovate "without being unfairly
disadvantaged by consolidated market power".
Equally "unfounded", the MEPs write, is the claim that the DMA
would be like a "tax" on US companies.
"Many American companies, including start-ups and SMEs - they
object - would benefit from a more open digital market".
photo: Virkkunen
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