The EU Commission should ask Big Tech “gatekeepers” to pay so that they can partially finance their own supervision of compliance with the new competition rules through a levy. In this way, the federal government and 17 European civil society organizations (NGOs) want to ensure more financial and human resources for the enforcement of the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
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The DMA is now intended to restrict abuse of power by large tech companies. The companies Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (TikTok), Meta and Microsoft, which the Commission classifies as “gatekeepers”, must therefore open themselves up more to competitors and no longer give preference to their own offerings. This is intended to prevent them from exploiting monopoly positions.
The EU Commission must enforce the DMA alone, writes the federal government in an informal paper published by Politico. To do this, the authority needs “all the necessary human, technical and financial resources”. This is currently not the case, while “the gatekeepers operate with unprecedentedly large teams of lawyers as well as business and technical experts.”
According to the “non-paper” from Berlin, the DMA evaluation, which is due by May 2026, would be a good opportunity to then decide on the levy, which is “proportionate to the size of the gatekeeper's central platform services”. The supervisory fees brought into play are already common at EU level in the banking sector and in the control of rating agencies. The second EU platform law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), also provides for financial participation by very large operators. However, Meta and TikTok are already suing the EU over this tax.
Only 80 instead of 220 positions at the Commission
The DMA is “a decisive step to ensure a level playing field” for small and medium-sized companies and “to protect consumers, employees and democracy,” emphasize NGOs such as LobbyControl, AlgorithmWatch, Corporate Europe Observatory and Digitalcourage in an open letter to the Commission . In this light, the Commission has “a key role to play in protecting the digital landscape and limiting the power of Big Tech.” The proper implementation of the DMA requires additional resources “that correspond to the DSA”. The gatekeepers themselves should contribute financially to their supervision. This would allow the Commission to recruit additional staff.
“It is already becoming clear that the tech companies will not simply adhere to the new rules,” warns LobbyControl. Instead of the 220 positions estimated by EU parliamentarians, the Commission currently only has 80 people available to enforce the Digital Markets Act. Transparency advocates warn that the EU Commission must “react harshly immediately if tech companies do not adhere to the new rules.” Gatekeepers should also be required to submit comprehensive activity reports. These could allow third parties to “participate in the enforcement process.”
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