The statements that come from the other side of the Atlantic are, by system, thunderous. to the European Commission’s decision to fine X 120 million euros three days earlier. These comments, from Brussels, usually go without a direct response. It is up to the spokespersons to give an almost administrative, low-profile reply. But in the meantime, the EU Executive, especially in Competition, is making progress. Just one example: in September this year, Google received the second highest fine in EU history: 2.95 billion for abusing its dominant position in the digital advertising business.
Already on the same day of Donald Trump’s inauguration in the White House, last January, the closeness between the technology magnates and the president who returned to Washington was observed. Warnings soon arrived from his closest collaborators. In February: “Some foreign governments are considering tightening the screws on American technology companies with an international presence. The United States cannot and will not accept that.” The latest threat, on European soil, came from the heads of Trade, Howard Lutnick and Jamieson Greer: if the EU wanted to resolve the pending issues of the trade war (steel and aluminum), it had to agree to water down its digital laws.
Behind these positions, there are different ways of seeing digital norms. The United States usually prioritizes freedom of business and expression over other freedoms and rights; The EU seeks to ensure that these two freedoms do not harm other fundamental rights or consumers. “Europe and the United States define freedom of expression differently,” he summarizes. “But the Trump administration’s current attack on EU digital laws is also part of its broader trade war: it seeks to better protect American economic interests,” the book’s author notes by email. Digital Empires.
From the European Commission: “There may be those who prefer that we look the other way when large technology companies fail to comply with our rules. We will not do so. European competition policy is designed to guarantee open, functioning markets, in which there is no room for abuses either on citizens or on new operators or industrial consumers,” the Spanish commissioner warned in response to EL PAÍS.
Throughout this last year, the department he heads, Competition, has seen the greatest punishments against large American technology companies. for abuse of a dominant position in the digital advertising business and the decision is still pending whether it will be forced to divide this part of its activity; In April, Apple was fined 500 million and Meta another 200 million. There are also open investigations into Amazon and Microsoft for their position in the cloud data market and .
And, to this list, we must add the impositions on Apple, for example, to open the operating systems of iPhones and iPads. “We have had the opportunity to apply European regulations and reinforce our commitment to complying with them, regardless of who the offender is and wherever the pressure comes from,” summarizes Ribera, as a summary of his first year as head of Competition.
There has also been a fine on His department, the General Directorate of Networks and Technology, is responsible for the deployment of the DSA. Under this action, in recent months, information has been requested from Apple, YouTube, Google or Microsoft about their performance in various fields of the digital universe. Meta has been preliminarily accused of violating transparency obligations. To this, we must add the commitments reached with TikTok (in this case with Chinese capital) or the recent investigation launched into X because its artificial intelligence, Grok, .
Despite this barrage, Ricard Martínez, director of the Chair of Privacy and Digital Transformation at the University of Valencia, believes that the EU still has more room for action in the field of digital services: “It seems quite evident that the Union has not deployed to the maximum all the capabilities that it should deploy. National authorities and the Commission should be absolutely rigorous.” However, it appreciates that “it remains the course” in the application of its regulations because the US regulatory model leads to “a constant devaluation of fundamental rights, which, in addition, has led to the largest accumulation of data in history”, with which great business has subsequently been made in the advertising market.
Digital sovereignty
For Bradford, a Finn living in the United States, these cases mean that the Commission sends a signal that “it remains committed to the application of its legislation and, at the same time, [lo hace cuando] is rethinking its regulatory agenda”, with a moratorium on generative AI like ChatGPT. “It is important that the EU does not give in to the pressures of the Trump administration or accept this false trade-off between digital regulation and competitiveness. The EU needs to strengthen its competitiveness and improve its digital sovereignty, but the way to do this does not go through deregulation,” he adds.
This dichotomy, however, is always present. For some it is false; for others, not so much. Bradford’s words can be opposed by some considerations such as that of Mario Draghi, former president of the ECB, who called for a moratorium on artificial intelligence. Or those of Google a week ago: the Alphabet subsidiary argued that “there is a risk of slowing down innovation in a market that is more competitive than ever.” In the reactions of X’s owner, Elon Musk, there is much less sophistication. The South African called to “abolish the EU” when the fine was published on his social network.
The Spanish Ribera disagrees: “Strengthening democracy requires facing new challenges, and today one of the most relevant comes from the advance of artificial intelligence. Europe is committed to technological change, but at the same time ensuring a solvent and reliable information ecosystem and plural media.”
