Stéphanie Yon-Courtin
Remit could shift following EU review ? Zuckerberg urges Trump to intervene
Brussels is reassessing its investigations of tech groups including Apple, Meta and Google, just as the US companies urge president-elect Donald Trump to intervene against what they characterise as overzealous EU enforcement.
The review, which could lead to the European Commission scaling back or changing the remit of the probes, will cover all cases launched since March last year under the EU's digital markets regulations, according to two officials briefed on the move.
It comes as the Brussels body begins a new five-year term amid mounting pressure over its handling of the landmark cases and as Trump prepares to return to the White House next week.
"It's going to be a whole new ballgame with these tech oligarchs so close to Trump and using that to pressurise us," said a senior EU diplomat briefed on the review. "So much is up in the air right now."
All decisions and potential fines will be paused while the review is completed, but technical work on the cases will continue, the officials said.
Two other EU officials said that Brussels regulators were now waiting for political direction to take final decisions on the Google, Apple and Meta cases.
The review comes as EU lawmakers call for the commission to hold its nerve against US pressure, while Silicon Valley chiefs hail Trump's return as the start of an era of lighter sector regulation.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's chief execu- tive, last week called on the presidentelect to stop Brussels fining US tech companies, and said EU regulators had forced them to pay "more than $30bn" in penalties over the past 20 years.
The implications of Trump's presidency were a factor in the EU review, one of the officials said, while insisting his victory had not triggered it.
The commission said that it remained "fully committed to the effective enforcement" of its rules. The ongoing cases were "not yet ready at technical level", the commission said, arguing that such investigations took time because of their complexity, novelty and the "need to ensure that commission decisions are legally robust".
It said that there was no review, but added: "What we do have are upcoming meetings to assess the general readiness of an investigation. No decision can be taken yet on any of these cases."
Under the Digital Markets Act, a law seeking to curb market abuse by big platforms, Brussels began investigations last March into Apple, Google and Meta.
The commission's chief spokesperson said yesterday: "There may be a political reality [in the US] that puts pressure on the technical work ... we will be looking and assessing on the basis of concrete measures and actions from the new [Trump] administration."
EU lawmakers have called for regulators to hold firm.
Stephanie Yon-Courtin, an MEP who was involved in drafting the tech rules, said that EU probes could not be sacrificed to avoid diplomatic fallout.
In a letter to Ursula von der Leyen, the commission president, Yon-Courtin said that the DMA "cannot be taken hostage". She added: "Please reassure me that your cabinet and yourself are fully supporting the effective implementation of the DMA, without further delay."
'It's going to be a whole new ballgame with these tech oligarchs so close to Trump and using that'
