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Margrethe Vestager, EU head of digital policy and competition, has rejected the idea that her next Digital Markets Act (DMA) will only target US tech companies.
He spoke after the The White House warned Brussels that the tone around its new cutting-edge technology sent a negative message and suggested that the EU “is not interested in committing itself in good faith to the United States” to the challenges posed by major technology platforms.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Vestager, who met with President Joe Biden during his visit to Brussels this week, said: [DMA] it is not aimed at certain companies or at certain nationalities of companies “.
The DMA describes new rules for platforms considered large enough to be “porters.”
“What we’ve been developing in trying to figure out who should be the scope and who should be a possible gatekeeper, has been about the effects of the market,” Vestager said.
He said the bill, which will now be debated by the European parliament, focuses on the “market effects” of Big Tech’s dominance over smaller rivals.
He suggested that the criteria developed by the EU will help set a broader focus than Silicon Valley’s largest companies: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. “We have made this proposal with a wider scope for good reasons due to the effects of the market,” he said.
Vestager’s comments will be seen as Brussels ’way of trying to alleviate tensions between the EU and the US at a time when both sides want to rebuild transatlantic relations after four turbulent years of Donald Trump.
But last month, Andreas Schwab, the German MEP who will help direct DMA legislation through the European parliament, said US technology companies were “the biggest problems”.
“Let’s focus first on the biggest problems, on the biggest bottlenecks. We go down the line (one, two, three, four, five) and maybe six with [China’s] Alibaba, ”he said.
The US administration has been pressured to be tougher against EU plans to regulate Big Tech. The co-chairs of the digital trade group in the United States recently warned about EU legislation that has the potential to “disproportionate damage American technology companies ”.
However, despite rhetoric accusing the EU of targeting US companies unfairly, the US government has designated harsh critics of Big Tech in crucial positions of power. Just last week, Lina Khan, an advocate for the breakdown of U.S. businesses, was named chair of the Federal Trade Commission.
Separately, the U.S. House of Representatives has introduced five bills that in some parts are even stricter than the Brussels bill. Observers point out that both the US and the EU face a similar challenge of taming companies that have become “too big to worry about”.
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