The European Digital Markets Act: A Revolution Grounded on Traditions

Key Points:

• The proposed DMA is a lost child of competition law and sits in a difficult epistemological position because it does not rest on a set of reasonably well articulated policy goals as with sector-specific regulation nor it benefits from experience and practice in individual cases as with competition law.
• The proposed DMA aims to support sustaining innovation by the users of Core Platform Services, which is a wise policy choice, innovation by frontal competitors wanting to displace the existing gate-keepers with existing digital services and disruptive innovation by newcomers wanting to displace gatekeepers with new digital services.
• It is also appropriate to favour behavioural remedies over structural remedies; this said the proposal could have looked beyond the traditional remedial catalogue of competition law such as interoperability-interconnection and governance remedies inspired by standardization policy.
• It is understandable that the proposed DMA relies on rigid rules to ease compliance and enforcement, but they will need to be complemented by standards to increase regulatory resilience.

• Primary Source

ESO Records

Proposal for a Regulation on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector (Digital Markets Act) https://www.europeansources.info/record/proposal-for-a-regulation-on-contestable-and-fair-markets-in-the-digital-sector-digital-markets-act/

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