The Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) today adopted its position on the Digital Markets Act (DMA)

Strasbourg, November 23rd 

This morning, the IMCO Committee adopted its opinion on the Digital Markets Act with 42 votes in favour, 2 against and 1 abstention. This allows for a plenary vote in December in order to start and conclude the trilogues under the French EU Presidency. 

“Today's vote is an important step in setting clear rules for large digital platforms by the end of 2022. The DMA will be one of the tools to ensure a regulatory framework fir for the new challenges,” says RENEW MEP Stéphanie Yon-Courtin and substitute to the IMCO committee. 

The Rapporteur for the ECON Committee is pleased that the ECON position has been taken into account to strengthen the text: “With its expertise in competition and financial market regulation, the ECON Committee has introduced several priorities into the debate that will contribute to strengthening the effectiveness of this regulation” :

• The scope remains limited to the largest gatekeepers that have one core platform service. We also extended the definition of payment services to include ApplePay and GooglePay.  
• Governance. National competition authorities have a clear role to play to support the European Commission’s enforcement work. They have developed a digital expertise. Regulating 10 to 15 companies like the size of Google, Facebook or Amazon will require more than 80 agents at the European Commission. 
• Killer acquisitions. This was a big loophole of the DMA, which remains an internal market tool and not a competition law tool. We extended the information obligation for all intended concentrations to all sectors and introduced the possibility of prohibiting acquisitions by gatekeepers who violate their obligations.
• Deterrent fines. The prospect of a 10% cap never being applied was not enough. Our suggestion to implement a threshold of at least 4% of global turnover for a serious violation has been adopted to make fines a serious threat.
• Compliance officers. Independent compliance officers must be present within the gatekeeper’s premises to assess on a real time their compliance with their obligations and access all the information needed. Compliance should not depend on the goodwill of gatekeepers. Frances Haugen reminded us of the importance of access to information in order to overcome this information asymmetry. 

Press contact: Louise Decourcelle + 33 6 44 06 85 6