The European Parliament and the Council of the EU started, on Tuesday 11 January, interinstitutional negotiations (‘trilogue’) on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) (see EUROPE 12854/21).
“We had a very good meeting, there is a very strong commitment to change the reality on the ground, to give small businesses a chance, to give consumers a choice”, said the European Commission Vice-President for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age, Margrethe Vestager, after the first exchanges.
A number of issues will need to be resolved during the discussions, starting with certain definitions - including that of ‘end-users - which should, as several Member States had requested, be “refined” (see EUROPE 12840/10).
In addition, the issue of coordination between national authorities and the European Commission - on which several Member States had expressed their wish to retain a significant margin of manoeuvre - is also expected to be included in the discussions.
Negotiations on the inclusion of voice assistants in the scope of the text should take place, as well as on the interoperability of services. On this point, the positions of some political groups in the European Parliament and in the EU Council - or among the Member States themselves - are sometimes far apart.
In particular, the Netherlands had stressed their commitment to such a measure, while Ireland had insisted that it would not accept any extension of the scope without prior impact assessments.
“Parliament will push during the trilogue negotiations to ensure that the DMA really becomes the European tool to stop unfair practices used by the biggest digital companies “, said rapporteur Andreas Schwab (EPP, Germany), ahead of the start of the trilogue negotiations. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)