The Council and the European Parliament agreed their positions on the DMA proposal in November and December 2021, respectively. While endorsing the proposal, both institutions adopted a number of amendments to the Commission's text. Trilogue negotiations aiming to reach a compromise text began in January 2022. Press conference with the participation of Andreas SCHWAB (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, Cédric O, Minister of State for the Digital Sector, for the French Presidency of the Council, Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, and Commissioner for Competition and Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market.

press conference

SCHWAB, Andreas (EPP, DE)

VESTAGER, Margrethe (DK, CE)

BRETON, Thierry (FR, EC)

digital services act (T)

Press conference by Andreas SCHWAB (EPP, DE), rapporteur on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) – results of the trilogue

SOUNDBITE (English), Andreas SCHWAB (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, Thank you very much. And good morning to everybody here in the room and those also outside. I want to tell you that we are a bit exhausted, but that our negotiation yesterday was successful and therefore that I'm very happy that we can meet. This morning here in the room, Anna Politkovskaya, which is the press room of the European Parliament. And which reminds us as well that although the negotiation might have been sometimes a bit difficult, we are here in a perfect world where we don't have to deal with issues like Anna Politkovskaya had to deal with. And that's the reason why the room is named on her.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andreas SCHWAB (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, On the concrete results: I want to have a very short look backwards with you, because in 2014, you may remember that the European Parliament has done a resolution on consumers in the digital single market and has been asking the European Commission at that time to consider also breaking up search engines. And this has been in 2014, this resolution, a political commitment, that a lot of people have taken by surprise. And I have been criticised also personally a lot for different reasons. And therefore, I'm sure very satisfied that seven years after that, the European Parliament, thanks to the European Commission and together with the European Council, has managed to make that happen.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andreas SCHWAB (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, And I want to tell you, never, ever underestimate the European Parliament. It has taken seven years, but here we are. And what we have been deciding about yesterday will start a new era in tech regulation. This regulation will be enforced by the European Commission. So the European Parliament from now on will rather be again on the side to watch how it will be done. We will watch closely. We will have to give credit for a difficult work. The European Commission will probably need more people to do that. And there is a large scope and I will not go now myself into details because I'm sure that minister O, like always done an excellent job for the French presidency. Vice President Vestager was done an excellent job for the commission, and Thierry Breton has done an excellent job for the European Commission as well. And we will do that.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andreas SCHWAB (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, I just want to tell you that this is for sure going beyond the European Union and what we don't want is separation of digital markets because the unity of markets has brought in Europe, with 27 members that had all the national markets and before, a lot of growth in the last 60, 70 years. And what we don't want with this is that there is a break between the European and other worldwide markets in digital.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andreas SCHWAB (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, But what we will not accept, and therefore this has to be done first, is that the law is not respected. So the precondition on everything is that there is respect and application for the law. And if you managed it together, then we can have also common markets. And I say it very clearly because we believe that in the Western world, especially today, we need that unity. And therefore, I think some elements that we have taken yesterday also show that we want to go down that line.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andreas SCHWAB (EPP, DE), Rapporteur, But the respect of the law is the outermost is of utmost importance. And like that, I just would like to thank my colleagues that have contributed to that result, because in the parliament alone, you cannot do anything like that. Thank you very much for your attention. And I think the floor is yours.

SOUNDBITE (French), Cédric O, Minister of State for the Digital Sector, for the French Presidency of the Council, I think that Europe has continued to build a framework and did that last night and this morning. After GDPR we have worked on this and we are also waiting on a proposal from the commission to create the framework we need for the digital sphere. And I think that we have taken a step that I think we can call historic last night. And so I'd like to start by thanking the parliament, the rapporteur and Mr Schwab in particular. And I'd like to thank Vice President and Commissioner Margrethe and Thierry as well, because I think that the work we did was very difficult. And I'd like to thank the technical teams as well because it's very important.

SOUNDBITE (French), Cédric O, Minister of State for the Digital Sector, for the French Presidency of the Council, I'd also like to say that the Digital Markets Act is very important here, you might say it's just a digital regulation, but it's not. No, it is a regulation for our economic area. It goes well beyond just the digital. It affects democracy as well. And if you look at what was happening at the end of the 19th century, the start of the 20th century in America, you can refer back to what was happening then: this is important not just in terms of the economy., it's important in terms of democracy as well.

SOUNDBITE (French), Cédric O, Minister of State for the Digital Sector, for the French Presidency of the Council, The DMA is something that actually echoes what we've had in the past. It looks at the challenges in the digital economy. I can remember meeting three or four years ago with Tim Willer in Washington and he said to me something that I've remembered: don't break them up, break them open. And I think that's what the DMA is doing today. I think we do need to assess these rules here and the way in which they're going to change our context. It's a tectonic shift.

SOUNDBITE (French), Cédric O, Minister of State for the Digital Sector, for the French Presidency of the Council, So this is an innovation in Europe and probably one for the rest of the world as well, because we will be looking at these market powers. We will be looking at the big tech will be strengthening the powers that we have. And, you know, that's all very important for us. It's close to our hearts in the French presidency. And also it's something that's important for the commission as well.

SOUNDBITE (French), Cédric O, Minister of State for the Digital Sector, for the French Presidency of the Council, I just like to stress what this means for Europe as well. Sometimes Europe is criticised for being slow, bureaucratic, but actually in less than 18 months, I think it, we've managed to come up with a text and over the next few months we'll see that it really is up to the job. And that it will actually be defining a European way. And I think it's going to be essential, given the context that has just been mentioned.

SOUNDBITE (French), Cédric O, Minister of State for the Digital Sector, for the French Presidency of the Council, Sovereignty means being able to make choices and implement them. And this is a form of innovation here. And for a long time, sovereignty has been partially theoretic. But I think we are picking up now. You will not have national soverignity in the long term if you don't have European sovereignty. And I think that in politics we do need to be working on tax that are as important as this. That's why I'd like to thank everyone involved.

SOUNDBITE (French), Cédric O, Minister of State for the Digital Sector, for the French Presidency of the Council, One final word. You have the economic area and you have the information area. And as you know, there is another important text being discussed at the moment: the Digital Services Act. So they are similar topics and there is one that links them and that is advertising. And I want to point out one thing here, that with the trust of the negotiators, there were certain points connected with advertising where we reached agreement the agreement that they would appear in the DSA and DMA.

SOUNDBITE (French), Cédric O, Minister of State for the Digital Sector, for the French Presidency of the Council, The DMA will let us strengthen the requirements for consent, you know, that's very important for the parliament and then the targeted advertising for the miners and the use of sensitive information for using targeted information where we find agreement on those points and that they will be included in the DSA. So you can show how much trust there was between us to be able to move forward and to take the most logical approach.

SOUNDBITE (French), Cédric O, Minister of State for the Digital Sector, for the French Presidency of the Council, So this means that we are looking to the future in France and in Europe. We are looking at the challenges and this is something that our presidency has been focussing on: we want to support innovation and we want to create the democratic framework for these new spaces. So this is a historic step. Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, and Commissioner for Competition, Well, thank you very much. It is 18 months ago the commission tabled the two proposals for the DMA  and the DSA. And here we are today. And with the processes foreseen, these pieces of legislation, well, they will have been voted and publicised in the official journal. So coming into force sometime in October. That is really, really fast. That means tabling proposal, negotiating positions, negotiating the final text, getting all the way to enforcement in one European Parliament mandate. That is really fast.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, and Commissioner for Competition, This is also why these congratulations, they're not just sort of empty promotions. They show that this is the teamwork. It takes to work on something as comprehensive as it has just been mentioned to actually make it happen. Of course, I would also like personally to thank both Andreas, Cedric O and Thierry for our cooperation with us. There are, I don't think I exaggerate, more than 100 people on the in the cabinet, on the technical side, the interpreters, when enabled, is everything that has been needed to make this happen. And I think it shows also the willingness for our democracy to say: well, we will rein this in. We will make sure that the market is open and contestable.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, and Commissioner for Competition, And also, I have a bit of history as well as Andreas here because businesses need to be able to get to the market. So in these seven, eight years as commissioner for competition, you know, complaints have been coming through our doors with not one, not two, but three Google cases. We're now on the fourth. We've had two Amazon cases before. We now have to open Amazon cases again. We have three Apple cases. We have a Facebook case. So we have seen what can happen in a marketplace and we see the changes in the specifics in every case.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, and Commissioner for Competition, When we share this with the national enforcers within the European Union. Well, they got the complaints coming through their doors as well. We have the Italian case. We have the Dutch case. We have the German case. And the thing is that what we have learnt over these years is that we can correct in specific cases, we can punish illegal behaviour. But when things become systemic, well, then we need regulation as well, because if there is a systemic misbehaviour, if there are entrenched positions, then we need regulation to come in.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, and Commissioner for Competition, And for companies, that plays a role as gatekeepers. Well, now, the set DMA will the rules of the game. And actually it's quite similar to what has been done a long time ago in banking, in telecoms, in energy, in transport, where regulation and competition works hand in hand, at long last re-establish the same reality here.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, and Commissioner for Competition, There are markets where some firms plays a special role that require regulatory oversight. And this is something that many jurisdictions around the world has come to realise. So I'm pleased that we are here with the co legislators and that they have kept the main architecture of our proposal, the centralised enforcement at EU level, a designation process of a gatekeeper that are in And scope. then, of course, a series of dos and don'ts that are imposed on the gatekeepers.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, and Commissioner for Competition, The DMA also gives us the tools to enforce those obligations because without enforcement, of course, there's no real change on ground. And that is the possibility to intervene if gatekeepers break the rules with fines and a wide range of sanctions in case of systemic non-compliance. We've had a lot of discussions in the trialogues about the scope of our obligations. Also with heated debates. This has not come without real political engagement. For example, a new interoperability obligation between messaging services has been added, as well as a ban of data collection for the purpose of targeted advertising unless there is effective consent.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, and Commissioner for Competition, The political agreement has also brought changes to the governance structure. For example, a bigger involvement of national competition authorities in the investigative parts of the DMA. And finally, a greater role have been given to third parties and possible actions and forms in cases of non compliance. Well, they have been widened. And also the possibility of a merger ban has been added in this process.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, and Commissioner for Competition, So I think we have created something with an original architecture that's effective with more challenging obligations for some of those object to to designation. And I want to thank you for doing this. We also, we still have DSA ahead of us. And it has been, I think, complicated, but successful to find the division of work between the two when it comes to targeted advertising and minors. But there's also democracy in this proposal because a fair marketplace is part of every democracy. And the steps that we took last night, well, they are huge steps in terms of securing every business that also the digital marketplace is fair for the benefit of every consumer. So thank you very, very much for the cooperation.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, My opportunity to tell you just how important this moment is. It's important for Europe, for European businesses and citizens, but it's also of great importance and significance to all four of us. As you know, we have a history with the digital space, and that actually is something that's unique about what we have here on the podium. And that generated a unique energy and unique dynamic that I've never seen in my entire career. A real desire and determination.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Now, we knew what the pressures were. And I don't think I have to tell you the powerful and  mighty lobbies that we were up against. And there was a determination, therefore, to put a proposal on the table that was, of course, enriched by the legislators.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, I think what we have here is something that's exhaustive and detailed enough to promote innovation. We have different backgrounds. Margrethe, I would say without a doubt, is the expert and the authority on competition worldwide. Even if, as she was saying earlier, those rules perhaps were no longer in step with the reality that we were seeing in the digital world. Andreas talked about his own experience and he had a very special energy determination. And I have to say that that was a very, very, very strong track record in the digital field with your legal expertise as well. We were very, very fortunate.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Obviously, am a comissioner I but I don't forget the fact that, of course, I do come from a European country. And and I must express my appreciation now for Cedric's energy, his passionate approach. And so it's under the French presidency, under your presidency, that we are now gathered announcing the solutions. I thank you, Cedric.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, And then that just leaves me. I've only been working in this field for about 35 years. I remember one of the books I wrote when I was younger and I was twenty eight and I talked about we how we would have to prepare for an information war. And back then I would never once have imagined myself standing before you as one of the four announcing this piece of regulation. So having said this, I think what we've been able to do is give real visibility to this.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Now, I am an internal market commissioner, so my role is to ensure that there are rules on the marketplace that's indispensable and that these rules are easy to understand and interpret and implement. Yes, these platforms, they certainly structure our lives. Our access to information used to be the Wild West. Now, that's no longer the case. We're taking back control. We, as politicians have said to them, yes, you're welcome here. You're welcome. In our internal market, in the digital internal market. But you must follow our rules.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, And we've been able to draw up these rules, drawing on all of our experience, our combined experience, and also the tireless efforts of all those who worked around the clock to make this happen. Now, we were able to assess what we considered to be an abuse of power. And we analysed very carefully the types of behaviours that had been condemned and where we'd been receiving complaints on.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, So all of that information, we gathered it, we looked at it and, you know, I don't want to quote verbatim from the text now, but I think there are some very clear guidelines in here and rules now. The message is clear. Everyone's welcome, but they must follow the rules. So what we have here is something that will allow us to act very quickly to enforce the rules. We have DG Connect colleagues and other colleagues who are going to work.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, So, yes, we must have these powers now. We must have them before there are infringements. So we were able to say, look, this is what you will do. These are the rules. If you do not follow the rules, then there will be corrections. Now, you can't have a regulation without sanctions. We know that if there's a regulation, you have to have a sanctions regime in place. Why? Because almost all of these online actors were being asked to respect regulation that we are adopting. But, you know, if we want people to actually toe the line, then we have to be able to be ready to impose fines, sanctions and and go further, we're talking about quite a significant figure is 10 percent, 20 percent, not negligible amounts by any means.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Also then, as we said, we've got other tools as well. And if there is systematic infringements, then you have the option of splitting up the activities on the internal market. So that's how we want to keep innovation going. We open that space up to innovation and we're giving everyone an opportunity to do this work in good coordination.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Now that we've had lively discussions. You will have looked at some of the numbers, you know, the sheer number of users and what we did for the first time. I think it's a first unprecedented worldwide. For the first time, we looked at the value, the stock market value, because I think if you look at the the valuation on the stock markets, we were able to get a sense of the power that these actors had on the market. We were taking a full picture of what was going on in order to decide on how to react.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, I don't want to go on too much length, but I think what we have here is the system regulation for the other pieces of legislation. And we wanted both of these legal acts to work together. So we have this one, which really provides visibility. And the second one is going to be more focussed on the networks.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Now, the book I wrote when I was just 30 years old, well, we have had to organise land based rules. The maritime space had to be regulated. Outer space needed to be regulated. And the same applies for the digital space as well. Thank you.