Digital Markets Act: MEPs demand timely action and resilience against external pressures

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a key instrument to improve market openness and fairness, competition and user choice

EU needs to address new challenges posed by generative AI and cloud-based infrastructures

MEPs concerned about external political pressure aimed at weakening the DMA

Commission should avoid reopening the core objectives, scope and architecture of the DMA

MEPs want the Commission to conclude ongoing non-compliance proceedings under the Digital Markets Act without further delay and to ensure the Act’s timely enforcement.

On Tuesday, the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee adopted a draft resolution evaluating the enforcement of the 2022 Digital Markets Act (DMA) and its impact on the tech industry, ahead of its forthcoming review. The MEPs emphasise the review should focus on strengthening the effectiveness and enforceability of the existing framework while avoiding any reopening of the DMA’s core objectives, scope and architecture. The resolution also highlights the need to address the new challenges posed by generative AI and cloud-based infrastructures to prevent gatekeepers from using these technologies to create new forms of market "lock-in".

EU’s sovereignty must not be compromised

The MEPs say the Commission must resist external political pressure from outside the EU that may seek to weaken the DMA, asserting that EU rules must apply equally to all gatekeepers regardless of their place of establishment or nationality.

Timely enforcement

MEPs call on the Commission to make “full and proactive use” of all the instruments at its disposal, including inspection, interim measures and periodic penalty payments, to prevent companies from circumventing the DMA. Non-compliance proceedings should be concluded without undue delay and respect both binding and indicative deadlines, with Parliament kept informed of progress.

Scrutiny of new technologies

In light of the increasing strategic importance of cloud computing services and their role in digital and AI ecosystems, MEPs urge the Commission to closely assess whether they meet the criteria for gatekeeper designation. The text also underlines that AI-driven search and assistant tools by dominant gatekeepers are increasingly becoming primary gateways for people to information, commerce and digital services, and want the Commission to examine whether these functionalities are fair and competitive.

Gatekeeper action

The resolution lists a series of concerns MEPs have about certain gatekeeper practices, for example: Google’s persistent self-preferencing limiting consumer choice; TikTok’s consent screens using behavioural techniques to obtain consent; change of default settings and easily accessing competing services by Microsoft; and, the continued use of prohibited parity clauses by Booking.com.

Real-world results

Finally, the texts underlines that the DMA’s effectiveness depends not only on formal compliance, but on tangible real-world outcomes for end users and business users, including their ability to effectively exercise the rights.

MEPs also calls for a "significant reinforcement" of the human and financial resources dedicated to DMA enforcement to match the complexity of the digital market.

Next steps

The resolution was adopted with 33 vvotes in favour, 2 against and 11 abstentions.

It is accompanied by an oral question, both of which will be put to vote at the 27-30 April plenary session.

Background

The Commission has officially designated seven companies - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft, and Booking.com as gatekeepers under the DMA, requiring them to comply with specific obligations for their core platform services.

In November 2025, the Commission launched investigations into Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure to determine if they should be designated as gatekeepers for their cloud computing services. In April 2025, it issued its first non-compliance decisions and fines against Meta regarding its "pay or consent" advertising model and Apple for breaching its anti-steering obligations.