(Bloomberg) — The European Union’s much-touted partnership with the U.S. has yet to bear fruit on devising a common approach to regulating big technology firms, a key commissioner said.
Thierry Breton, the bloc’s internal markets commissioner, told a European Parliament committee on Tuesday that the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council was “not particularly fruitful at this stage” when it comes to tech regulation. The TTC initiative was launched earlier this year to help forge a common approach to big tech and to competing with China.
He was responding to criticism from the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo that some of the EU’s prospective tech legislation was unfairly targeting U.S. companies.
“Europe will be taking leadership in terms of the digital space,” Breton said, despite “criticism from the other side of the Atlantic regarding our approach.”
The parliament is debating a law called the Digital Markets Act that is intended to rein in anti-competitive behavior from tech companies with measures that will clearly hit Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The parliament’s rules also include the Dutch company Booking.com and could later impact Zalando SE and Alibaba Group Holding LTD.
The plan, which is set for final approval by the parliament this week, would place limits on targeting ads to minors and force messaging apps to communicate with each other. Companies face fines as high as 20% of global annual sales for breaches of the law.
‘Serious Concerns’
But Raimondo said last week that Washington had “serious concerns that these proposals will disproportionately impact U.S.-based tech firms and their ability to adequately serve EU customers and uphold security and privacy standards.”
Breton on Tuesday thanked lawmakers for maintaining “100% of the ambition” of the digital law despite heavy lobbying from tech companies.
The statement was a subtle dig at comments made last month by the EU’s antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, who urged parliamentarians to quickly pass the Digital Markets Act, as well as the Digital Services Act, which would regulate how companies handle harmful content, saying it “is best to get 80% now than 100% never.”
On Tuesday, Vestager said the interest she’s seeing from lawmakers in Washington on regulating tech is “very encouraging.”
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