Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Removed15. Calls for merger assessment frameworks to be updated to reflect the realities of the digital economy, where market power can be manifested in ways beyond traditional market share; supports the development of new methodologies to analyse data-driven dominance and network effects;

Added21. Notes that the turnover thresholds in the EC Merger Regulation alone might not be suitable for detecting all cases that should be reviewed by the competition authorities; highlights practices used by dominant firms to avoid formal investigations, such as the growing use of ‘partnerships’ in the AI sector, which further suggests that a review of the EU Merger Regulation is necessary;

Removed16. Calls on the Commission to address excessively long antitrust investigations during which companies continue to benefit from their anticompetitive practices;

Added22. Welcomes the Draghi report’s proposal for an ‘innovation defence’ in cases where a merger increases the ability and incentive to innovate, and invites the Commission to analyse and further develop this concept; furthermore calls for matters of public interest, such as the impact on workers, to be taken into account;

Added23. Asks the Commission to identify the national barriers that may prevent it from considering the EU market as the relevant one in its analyses of mergers; calls on the Commission to present a legislative proposal to remove these impediments; notes that the international environment needs to be carefully analysed when deciding on the definition of the relevant market in competition and merger control cases; calls on the Commission to adopt a forward-looking approach to consolidation in the EU where appropriate, as also proposed by the Draghi and Letta reports, taking into account the strategic importance and pro-competitive impact of scale and favourable investment conditions in certain sectors for driving innovation and long-term competition;

Added24. Calls for merger assessment frameworks to be updated to reflect the realities of the digital economy, where market power can be manifested in ways beyond traditional market share in clearly delineated markets; supports the development of advanced methodologies for analysing data-driven dominance and network effects, emphasising the critical role of consumer choice in selecting digital services and devices; encourages the Commission to enhance mechanisms enabling interoperability across services and devices, fostering innovation and competition in the digital ecosystem; urges the Commission to progress swiftly on the implementation of the existing interoperability obligations for messaging services under the DMA, the existing interoperability obligations for cloud providers under the Data Act and to start work on the review of the DMA for May 2026; urges the Commission to implement existing interoperability obligations under the DMA and look into extending interoperability obligations to online social networking services; supports the Commission in taking more account of the potential harm to competition when assessing mergers where expansion into adjacent markets would have the effect of further strengthening market dominance in the acquiring company’s core market;

Added25. Calls on the Commission to address excessively long antitrust investigations during which companies continue to benefit from their anticompetitive practices; calls on the Commission to set appropriate time limits for antitrust cases and ensure an effective follow-through of decisions taken; calls on the Commission to adopt further interim measures to stop any practice which would seriously harm competition, particularly in relation to dynamic and rapidly developing markets such as digital markets;

Sectoral policies

Change 13

Changed17.26. Welcomes the two recentSeptember 2024 landmark casesjudgments by the Court of Justice confirming the Commission’s assertion that the Irish tax deal with Apple constitutes illegal State aid and that Google constitutesabused anticompetitiveits practice;dominant position in contravention of the Treaties; acknowledges that the legal framework in Ireland has since changed; encourages the Commission to continue the clamp down on State aid abuses involving the selective granting of tax breaks to companies;

Change 14

Removed18. Emphasises the worrying market concentrations in various digital markets, such as social media, search engines, artificial intelligence, cloud services and online advertising; underlines the actual and potential negative impact on European competitiveness, data protection, society and democracy; urges the Commission to address issues that are specific to the tech market, including infrastructural power, vertical concentration and market leveraging in digital markets;

Added27. Notes the detrimental effect of international tax competition; recalls its support for the implementation of Pillar Two of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); deeply regrets the US presidential Executive Order of 20 January 2025 which asserts that the OECD global tax agreement has ‘no force or effect within the United States’; stresses the importance of multilateralism in ensuring that multinationals pay their fair share of taxation where value is created; takes the view that the EU should fully stand by the OECD’s Pillar Two Directive;

Removed19. Calls for the vigorous enforcement of all competition rules, including the Foreign Subsidies Regulation and the Digital Markets Act, to address gatekeeper practices and foster contestable markets and fair competition;

Added28. Emphasises the worrying market concentrations in various digital markets, such as social media, search engines, AI, cloud services, e-commerce, microchips and online advertising; underlines the actual and potential negative impact on EU competitiveness, the resilience of supply chains, media freedom, privacy and data protection, society and democracy; urges the Commission to address issues that are specific to the tech market, including infrastructural power in hardware and cloud computing layers, vertical concentration, algorithmic manipulation of the digital public sphere and market leveraging in digital markets, as demonstrated by the progress made under the DMA; additionally calls for the opening of new investigations into the cloud services sector to further ensure fair competition and innovation, taking into account the degree of market concentration in this sector and anticompetitive practices related to complex and non-transparent licensing terms or forced bundling; furthermore, urges the Commission to address the increasing vertical concentration of dominant players across the advertising value chain, which puts the EU online advertising sector at risk;

Removed20. Notes with concern the fragmentation in numerous consumer markets, including financial services, telecoms and household energy, and calls for faster and greater market integration where there are benefits for consumers;

Added29. Notes the rapid development of AI services, which has the potential to result in market concentration; calls on the Commission to take an ecosystemic approach towards this sector, including by developing and applying new theories of harm to address the further entrenchment of the dominant players in this sector; highlights that the DMA contains several provisions that must be used to prevent gatekeepers from restricting emerging AI developers, and asks the Commission to act swiftly to address the risk of consumers being forced into using pre-determined AI services on their mobile devices, ensuring that AI systems remain user-selectable and transparent, thereby safeguarding competition and consumer choice; calls on the Commission to explore the possibility of adding generative AI as a new core platform service under the DMA;

Removed21. Notes with concern the high degree of market concentration in the European financial sector, as well as its sustained over-reliance on non-EU service providers;

Added30. Notes that large digital players use their market power, power over consumers, financial resources and data concentration in one market to leverage their position in another; stresses that small players cannot compete with the aforementioned factors, which makes EU citizens even more dependent on the same small number of non-EU companies and endangers strategic autonomy; calls for increased scrutiny of the leveraging of position by dominant digital sector players into other sectors and the EU’s strategic autonomy, through a revision of the merger guidelines to ensure that market leveraging can be scrutinised more effectively;

Added31. Notes the importance of data and data analytics tools as one of the deterring factors for digital market concentrations and acquisitions in the digital sector; calls for an opinion of the European Data Protection Board in cases of concentrations involving one or more operators in digital sectors on the relevance of datasets for the intended concentration, the personal data the target acquisition processes and the potential impact on the rights to privacy and data protection the intended concentration has;

Added32. Expresses concern regarding the growing use of dynamic pricing mechanisms across the EU; calls on the Commission to explore regulatory measures against highly adaptive and opaque pricing methods;

Added33. Calls on the Commission to vigorously enforce all competition rules, including the Foreign Subsidies Regulation and the DMA, in order to address gatekeeper practices and foster contestable markets and fair competition; stresses that the Commission must have sufficient staff for enforcement, while noting that new tools, as well as scientists and economists stemming from divergent disciplines, can work to improve competition law enforcement; underlines in particular that the DMA should be applied rigorously and independently, without any undermining by external pressures; stresses that the DMA and potential fines must not be used as a bargaining chip in relation to discussions on tariffs, but as a cornerstone of the EU’s efforts to ensure fair and competitive digital markets; notes the six non-compliance procedures launched against some designated gatekeepers; is deeply concerned about potential delays in critical investigations and the capacity of the Commission to respect their ‘best effort’ obligations and to make a decision on non-compliance procedures without undue delay;

Added34. Notes with concern the fragmentation in numerous consumer markets, including financial services, telecoms and household energy, and calls for faster and greater market integration where there are benefits for consumers, and for recognition that this market integration can drive investment and innovation;

Added35. Expresses alarm at the high concentration in the retail, agricultural and automotive sectors in overseas territories whereby excessive prices set by dominant undertakings on essential products and services amplify inequalities, precariousness and territorial disparities; calls on the Commission to launch an investigation into potential abuses of dominant position under Article 102 TFEU;

Added36. Notes with concern the high degree of market concentration in the European financial sector, as well as its sustained over-reliance on a limited number of non-EU service providers; notes that the three largest credit rating agencies still hold a market share of over 90 %; expresses concern about the continued high concentration in the public interest entities (PIE) audit market, with four firms mainly holding the vast majority of EU revenues for PIE audits, limiting choice and risking supervisory capture; invites the Commission to present an impact assessmenton options to address these concerns; urges the Commission to carefully assess public tenders for expertise from audit market participants so that potential conflicts of interest are avoided;

Added37. Expresses concern about the food price crisis and notes, in this regard, the high levels of market concentration in food supply chains; reiterates its call for the Commission to urgently conduct a thorough analysis of the extent and effect of buying alliances, thereby devoting special attention to guaranteeing fair competition and greater transparency in supermarket and hypermarket chains’ commercial practices, particularly where such practices affect brand value and product choice or limit innovation or price comparability; recalls, in this light, the market concentration in agri-commodity trading wherein four companies account for the vast majority of the global crop trade; regrets that the Commission nonetheless conditionally approved the 2024 Bunge-Viterra merger (M.11204) despite competition concerns; asks the Commission to address excessive power accumulation in the hands of a few large players in this market, in order to strengthen the bargaining position of farmers and consumers alike; highlights the implementation of the New Competition Tool in this context;

Added38. Notes the high-net profits of EU banks during this inflationary period, mostly driven by the delayed pass-through of the rapid monetary policy tightening to deposit rates;

Added39. Notes with particular concern the dominant position of two international card schemes in the EU payments market, and their engagement in practices that reinforce and extend their dominance of this market, potentially further increasing barriers to entry and hampering long-term innovation, as well as leading to higher costs for EU businesses and ultimately consumers; calls on the Commission to take decisive actions, emphasising the need for a review of the Interchange Fee Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2015/751) to tackle the significant increase in card scheme fees charged by international card schemes and to ensure a fair, competitive and transparent market environment;

Parliamentary involvement

Change 15

Removed22. Stresses that Parliament should be sufficiently involved in shaping competition policy; calls on the Commission to enter into negotiation for an interinstitutional agreement on competition policy;

Added40. Stresses that Parliament should be sufficiently involved in shaping competition policy; cautions against the over-reliance on soft-law instruments, such as guidance and temporary frameworks, in which Parliament’s involvement is limited; calls on the Commission to enter into negotiation for an interinstitutional agreement on competition policy to formalise its enforcement priorities to Parliament; calls on the European Council to adopt a decision under Article 48(7) TEU allowing for the adoption of legislative acts in the area of competition policy in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure; stresses that Parliament should be more involved in the activity of working parties and expert groups in the International Competition Network and the OECD as an observer, and also in the High-Level Group on the DMA;

Added41. Calls on the responsible Executive Vice-President, also Commissioner in charge of competition policy to maintain close contact with Parliament’s competent committee and its working group on competition issues;

°

° °

42. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.