EU responds to US criticism of DMA, doesn't target US firms

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".