Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Change 7

Changed6.14. Welcomes the Commission’s announcement that it will launch an anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles;vehicles under Regulation EU 2016/1037 on protection against subsidised imports from countries not members of the European Union; underlines the importance of the effective implementation of EU instruments on foreign subsidies, including Regulation (EU) 2022/2560 on foreign subsidies in order to ensure the mitigation of potentially distortive effects on the single market; draws attention to the lack of resources with only fiveeight FTEfull-time equivalents (FTEs) within the Commission;

Change 8

Changed7.15. Calls on the Commission to modernise public the procurement rules to help foster green and digital industry; calls on thein Commissionorder to take intodeal accountwith thenew sustainabilitypriorities and sovereignty criteria for publicoperational procurementchallenges, ruleswith ina orderview to foster thehelping productionfoster ofgreener goodsindustry ‘madeand inEuropean Europe’;standards;

Change 9

Removed8. Underlines the key role of the European Competition Network (ECN); calls on the Commission to strive for continued constructive dialogue and cooperation at international level; underlines the need to increase collaboration between antitrust and other sectoral regulators, such as those dealing with data privacy, to both supervise corporate data misuse and prevent companies from using consumer data to gain an unfair competitive advantage;

Added16. Stresses that EU competition rules should contribute to the EU’s objective as defined in Article 3 TEU; stresses that the ‘fair price’ of products is not the lowest price possible for the consumer, but a price that allows for the fair remuneration of all parties along the supply chain, while not resulting in negative externalities; underlines that enforcing competition policy to the benefit of consumers should not only include considerations on price levels, but also sustainability considerations and impacts on citizens’ privacy;

Added17. Underlines the key role of the European Competition Network (ECN) as a forum to foster collaboration and cooperation among European competition authorities; calls on the Commission to strive for continued constructive dialogue and cooperation at international level; underlines the need to increase collaboration between antitrust and other sectoral regulators, such as those dealing with data privacy, to both supervise corporate data misuse and prevent companies from using consumer data to gain an unfair competitive advantage; welcomes the relevant role of national competent authorities (NCAs) in enforcing the DMA rules and the national legislative initiatives that are being put in place to tackle the anticompetitive behaviour of large online platforms in digital sectors; stresses, in this regard, the importance of coordinated and homogeneous action that does not undermine the application of the DMA, on the one hand, and national competition rules in the digital sector, on the other hand, as provided for in Article 1(6) DMA;

Added18. Points out that in a globalised world, international cooperation is crucial to ensure effective competition enforcement; stresses that dedicated cooperation agreements with non-EU countries in the area of competition policy can meaningfully contribute to its effectiveness; calls on the Commission to develop the influence of competition policy in the world, in particular by stepping up cooperation with non-EU countries via second generation cooperation agreements that allow for a more effective exchange of information between competition authorities;

Added19. Calls on the Commission to make greater use of additional evidential tools such as behavioural insights and financial analytics, as well as greater use of data, computer and AI scientists, and behavioural economists in competition law enforcement;

Added20. Notes the continued high degree of market concentration for credit rating agencies given that the three largest credit rating agencies hold a market share of over 90 %; reiterates the need to enhance competition in this market so as to ensure impartiality and trust;

Added21. Regrets the decision of Ernst & Young to stop the separation process of its audit and advisory businesses; notes that the combination of audit and advisory businesses can lead to conflicts of interest and can enhance the market dominance of each of the Big Four firms; calls on the Commission to investigate the audit and advisory business combination and to possibly present measures to prevent conflicts of interest and market dominance;

Merger control

Change 10

Changed9.22. UnderlinesNotes that the importancebuying out of thestart-ups Commissionby takingdominant decisiveplayers action,might underdry Articleup 22innovation and, eventually, competition; underlines the importance of the ECCommission Mergerpaying Regulation,close againstattention to the phenomenon of ‘killer acquisitions’ in the digital sector that must be reported under the DigitalDMA, Marketsand Act;taking decisive action under Article 22 of the EC Merger Regulation where appropriate;

Change 11

Removed10. Welcomes the Commission’s initiative to review its notice on the definition of ‘relevant market’ and looks forward to the outcomes of the public consultation; underlines the need to adopt a more dynamic approach and take into account a longer-term vision encompassing the global dimension and potential future competition;

Added23. Welcomes the Commission’s recent decisions on merger cases; underlines the importance of structural remedies in merger decisions; notes that the largest and most influential online platforms affect the daily operations of tens of thousands of SMEs; stresses that an acquisition cannot lead to the strengthening of the dominant position of a company in the hotel market by allowing it to cross-sell its various services;

Added24. Welcomes the Commission’s initiative to review its notice on the definition of ‘relevant market’ and looks forward to the outcomes of the public consultation; underlines the need to adopt a more dynamic approach that goes beyond the traditional approach, especially for new emerging markets such as in the digital sector, and takes into account a longer-term vision encompassing the global dimension and potential future competition; deplores the fact that, in the past, the Commission sometimes took too narrow a perspective on the relevant market, thus depriving European companies of the opportunity to effectively compete in a globalised arena; supports the Commission in taking into greater account the potential harm to competition when assessing mergers in which expansion into adjacent markets would have the effect of further strengthening market dominance in the acquiring company’s core market;

Added25. Is concerned by the far reaching concentration in certain parts of the food supply chain, to the detriment of consumers, farmers, the environment and biodiversity alike;

Added26. Recalls that, under the EC Merger Regulation, Member States can take appropriate measures to protect matters of public interest, such as climate protection, sustainability and the rule of law and asks for the Commission to be given the same possibility when examining the impact of concentration on the internal market;

Antitrust and cartels

Change 12

Changed11.27. Calls on the Commission to adoptmake furtherbetter use of the instrument of interim measures to stop any practice which would seriously harm competition, particularly in relation to dynamic and rapidly developing markets such as digital markets;

Change 13

Removed12. Calls on the Commission to speed up antitrust procedures and introduce a time limit for antitrust cases in order to ensure the effectiveness of EU rules; underlines that Spotify filed a complaint against Apple in 2019 and that, in spite of the Commission having issued a statement of objections, no concrete actions have been taken thus far to address Apple’s restrictions, preventing app developers from freely communicating with their own users;

Added28. Welcomes the new approach in the latest antitrust cases where the Commission, for the first time, and, under certain conditions, provides for the imposition of structural remedies to stop anticompetitive conduct, especially when the anticompetitive practice in question has been reiterated in other market segments by the same company over the years; encourages the Commission, in this regard, to continue in this direction for an effective ex post antitrust enforcement;

Removed13. Welcomes the opening of a formal investigation into possible anti-competitive practices by Microsoft regarding Teams; calls on the Commission to carefully assess the concessions, unilaterally offered by Microsoft, with the undertakings involved, in order to ensure that they address the concerns of existing consumers, as well as interoperability and pricing issues;

Added29. Calls on the Commission to speed up antitrust procedures, set appropriate time limits for the procedures and ensure an effective follow-through of decisions in order to avoid lengthy procedures, such as in the case of Spotify, which filed a complaint against Apple in 2019, and wherein, in spite of the Commission having issued a statement of objections, no concrete actions have been taken to address Apple’s restrictions, preventing app developers from freely communicating with their own users;

Removed14. Insists on effective remedies which require greater coordination between enforcers and further dialogue with third parties; recalls that undertakings designated as gatekeepers have been subject to previous antitrust rulings, which have not led to effective behavioural changes; regrets the reluctance of the Commission to address market dominance through structural separation;

Added30. Welcomes the launch of the initiative on the guidelines on exclusionary abuses of dominance, which will be drafted in 2024 and adopted in 2025,and the Commission’s commitment to a vigorous, effective and prompt application of Article 102 TFEU in the area of exclusionary abuses; calls on the Commission to concretely confirm the effect-based enforcement of antitrust rules and, in particular, the relevance of the economic evidence in appropriate cases; calls for consumer vulnerability to be taken into account when assessing exploitative abuses such as excessive prices and unfair terms;

Added31. Notes the opening of a formal investigation into possible anticompetitive practices by a gatekeeper by tying or bundling a communication and collaboration platform to its own dominant and popular software; calls on the Commission to carefully assess the concessions, unilaterally offered by the gatekeeper, with the undertakings involved, in order to ensure that they address the concerns of market players with regard to new and existing users, as well as interoperability and pricing issues;

Added32. Insists on effective remedies which may require greater coordination between enforcers and further dialogue with third parties, as well as appropriate enforcement; recalls that undertakings designated as gatekeepers have been subject to previous antitrust rulings, which have not led to effective behavioural changes, especially regarding self-preferencing in digital markets; invites the Commission to make better use of structural remedies as a matter of last resort; reiterates its call on the Commission to end the primacy of behavioural remedies in EU law;

Added33. Reiterates its call on the Commission to address the anticompetitive effect of territorial supply constraints with a view to ensuring a fully functional single market and harnessing its potential benefit for consumers;

Added34. Reiterates, furthermore, its call on the Commission to continue actively monitoring and removing unjustified geo-blocking and other restrictions on cross-border online sales, having at its core a pro-consumer approach to allow consumers access to a greater choice of products and services across the EU;

Competition policy in the digital age

Change 14

Removed15. Welcomes the designation of six gatekeepers for 22 core platform services under the Digital Markets Act, as well as the four market investigations under the Digital Markets Act;

Added35. Welcomes the designation of six gatekeepers – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft – for 22 core platform services under the DMA, the four market investigations for the rebuttal as well as the first market investigation under Article 3(8) DMA; encourages the Commission to promptly adopt delegated acts in order to expand the modalities of application or to specify the modalities of implementation of the obligations laid down in Articles 5, 6, 7 and12 DMA; calls on the Commission to rigorously assess whether the gatekeepers are complying with the DMA obligations before 6 March 2024 and to seek feedback from third parties as to whether the compliance solutions offered by gatekeepers lead to fairer and more contestable digital markets; calls on the Commission to ensure that gatekeepers’ measures on the security and integrity of their platforms, which could impact compliance with the DMA, are vetted by independent third parties and not solely based on the gatekeepers’ own assessment;

Removed16. Welcomes the market investigation into Apple’s iMessage in order to assess its role as a gateway; highlights the inclusion by default of iMessage on all iOS devices for more than 144 million users; stresses the importance of smartphones as an essential personal and professional tool; highlights that today’s market is dominated by two operating systems, with their own non-interoperable messaging services, which limits the possibility for users and businesses to freely move from one ecosystem to the other;

Added36. Points out that the Commission study on ‘the impact of recent developments in digital advertising on privacy, publishers and advertisers’ concludes that the large-scale collection and processing of personal data for advertising purposes and the opaqueness of the digital advertisement market could be fuelling ad fraud; calls on the Commission, in line with the study’s recommendations, to further analyse legislative options for future policy interventions, including the imposition of structural remedies, to address anticompetitive conduct, by complementing the DMA and the Digital Services Act (DSA) in this regard;

Removed17. Regrets the absence of cloud services providers from the gatekeepers list, despite the damaging anti-competitive practices underlined by national competition authorities; highlights that the European cloud market is dominated by a few very large players; calls on the Commission to ensure that all eligible services are designated in order to restore fair and equal competition in the European cloud market;

Added37. Notes the market investigations into Microsoft’s Edge and Bing and Apple’s iOS and iMessage in order to assess their role as gateways and their entrenched positions in the market, as per the decision to designate Apple and Microsoft as gatekeepers under the DMA; highlights the inclusion by default of iMessage on all iOS devices for more than 144 million users; stresses the importance of smartphones as an essential personal and professional tool; highlights that today’s market is dominated by two operating systems, with their own non-interoperable messaging services, which limits the possibility for users and businesses to freely move from one ecosystem to the other and to seamlessly communicate with each other regardless of operating system, which is fundamentally against the spirit and the letter of the DMA; calls, therefore, on the Commission to proceed expeditiously in its investigation and its effective implementation to bring the benefits of messaging interoperability to all in a timely manner;

Removed18. Calls on the Commission to look at emerging gatekeepers in generative Artificial Intelligence under the Digital Markets Act;

Added38. Notes the CJEU decision in the Meta v Bundeskartellamt case that affirms the competence of national competition authorities to enforce data protection rules under antitrust laws; points out that the CJEU affirms that the protection of personal data is an important consideration when examining an abuse of a dominant position and that it imposes requirements on the use of individuals’ personal data for targeted advertising; encourages competition authorities to investigate infringements of the General Data Protection Regulation and data protection authorities to sanction such infringements;

Removed19. Stresses the need for the effective coexistence of competition law and the Digital Markets Act; calls on the Commission to ensure sufficient resources and synergies, and to avoid overlaps or duplications of existing structures and measures;

Added39. Notes the conclusions of the proceedings of the Bundeskartellamt and Alphabet Inc. that gives Google users better choices as to how Google processes their data; asserts that EU consumers must have the choice of whether they allow agglomeration and cross-service data processing of their personal data; encourages the Commission to pursue the coordination of enforcement activities and cooperate with national competition authorities in order to facilitate an effective interplay between competition law and the DMA, especially in the context of the DMA’s ‘further obligations’;

Removed20. Highlights the EU’s future connectivity needs in terms of infrastructure and investments; calls for the establishment of a policy framework whereby large traffic generators contribute fairly to the adequate funding of telecom networks without prejudice to net neutrality;

Added40. Points out that the Internet of Things is a growing market; points out further that smart home devices, such as robot vacuum cleaners, are a major source of consumer data; notes that mergers and acquisitions in this sector can provide major competitive damage; calls on the Commission to include data as a source of market power in the evaluation of merger and acquisition cases in this sector, specifically when these cases involve established big tech companies; calls, furthermore, for conditions to be imposed on the use of data, if needed;

Added41. Regrets the absence of cloud service providers from the gatekeepers list; calls on the Commission to consider opening market investigations under Article 3(8) DMA (qualitative assessment) in this sector, given, in particular, the concentrated market structure and damaging anti-competitive practices underlined by national competition authorities; highlights that the European cloud market is dominated by a few very large players; calls on the Commission to ensure that all eligible services are designated in order to restore fair and equal competition in the European cloud market;

Added42. Calls on the Commission to assess the need of launching a market investigation under Article 19 DMA, adding new categories of core platform services under Article 2(2) DMA in the light of the latest technological developments that may lead to new types of services that do not fall within the existing categories such as generative artificial intelligence; recognises that new features powered by generative artificial intelligence can be incorporated into existing digital services, such as online search engines, and can be captured by the existing list of core platform services that could lead to the strengthening of existing gatekeepers;

Added43. Notes the joint statement by the G7 competition authorities on competition and artificial intelligence, underlining the importance of cooperation to promote competition in digital markets; calls on the Commission to be vigilant regarding cooperation agreements in the context of developments in artificial intelligence in order to ensure that such cooperation agreements are not potentially hidden mergers or killer acquisitions;

Added44. Reiterates that the DMA has a different legal basis in contrast to the competition framework; stresses the need for the effective coexistence of the ex post enforcement of competition law and the ex ante enforcement of the DMA, given their complementary nature; stresses the need to deploy sufficient staffing resources and synergies for an effective implementation of the rules, and to avoid overlaps or duplications of existing structures and measures;

Added45. Highlights the EU’s future connectivity needs in terms of infrastructure and investments; calls on the Commission to consider a revision of the current competition practice for the telecom market in order to facilitate the creation of a fully integrated single market for telecommunication services; notes that market consolidation might be the only way to avoid selling infrastructure piece by piece to foreign non-EU companies and to compete effectively in a global scenario; points out that the growth of this sector in Europe has been very low over the last decade and that fragmentation is the main reason for this; welcomes, in this regard, Commissioner Breton’s announcement of the Commission’s work on a new proposal for a Digital Networks Act to address market fragmentation, attracting investment and securing telecom infrastructure and innovation without extra costs for consumers and without jeopardising fair competition on the market between all players;

Added46. Notes, with concern, that gatekeepers that develop a data advantage over rivals can achieve critical economies of scale, which contribute to the further tilting of competitive balances in digital markets and stifle innovation;

Added47. Stresses that personal data assets should be considered and assessed in the same way as other traditional assets when deciding on digital mergers and acquisitions; stresses further that data consolidation through mergers and acquisitions can strengthen a dominant position;

AddedTaxation

Added48. Deplores the distortive effects of aggressive tax planning and of tax systems of certain Member States on fair competition, as they may stifle innovation and jeopardise the contestability of markets, especially for SMEs; calls for companies that engage in tax avoidance using non-EU tax havens to be excluded from public procurement procedures and barred from receiving State aid, as these companies are competing under unfair conditions with companies established in non-tax havens; welcomes the Commission’s recommendation of 14 July 2020 to not grant financial support to companies with links to tax havens, while protecting honest taxpayers;

Added49. Calls on the Commission to look into the possibility of fining countries found to be in breach of EU State aid rules; encourages the Commission to pursue its investigations into Member States’ tax ruling practices;

Added50. Notes the commitment of Vice-President Šefčovič and Commissioner-Designate Hoekstra to launch a discussion on phasing out fossil fuel subsidies; recalls its demand to implement concrete policies, timelines and measures to phase out fossil fuel subsidies through tax measures as soon as possible;

Added51. Welcomes the Commission’s vigilance in enforcing State aid rules in the area of taxation;

Added52. Deplores, at the same time, that several recent Commission decisions in high-profile competition cases in the area of taxation have been annulled by the CJEU; calls on the Commission to prepare its competition policy cases more thoroughly so that they can hold up in a court of law; notes, with concern, that the annulment of fines and the retroactive payment of default interest in annulled cases also pose a budgetary risk for the EU;

Parliamentary involvement

Change 15

Changed21.53. Stresses that Parliament should play an active role in shaping competition policy and should be more involved in the activity of working parties and expert groups; considers that more frequent use should be made of Parliament’s right to intervene in judicial proceedings concerning competition law;

Change 16

Added54. Calls on the responsible Commissioner in charge of competition policy to stay in close contact with Parliament’s competent Committee and its working group on competition issues;

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Change 17

Changed22.55. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission,Commission and the parliaments and competition authorities of the Member States.