Brussels, BELGIUM – With the European Commission’s first formal review of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) expected in the coming days, the tech sector is calling for a rigorous, evidence-based assessment of how the law is working in practice.
The review comes at a critical moment, as policymakers now have to assess whether the DMA is actually delivering on its objectives without undermining innovation, legal certainty, and market efficiency – or is creating counterproductive outcomes – the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA Europe) stresses.
Speaking today at the European Digital Competition Day conference in Brussels, CCIA Europe’s Daniel Friedlaender underlined that the DMA review must go beyond formality and provide a genuine evaluation of real-world outcomes.
The Association stresses that the Commission must act as a neutral arbiter and carefully consider input from all stakeholders, including ‘gatekeepers’ (large online platforms that the law specifically targets), to ensure the framework does not drift into ineffective enforcement.
CCIA Europe warns that DMA compliance has increasingly become a ‘guessing game’ for companies as regulatory expectations and requirements have continued to shift.
Experts have pointed to procedural shortcomings, including limited transparency in third-party consultations and compressed timelines that leave businesses only weeks to respond to complex technical demands.
The current framework also lacks key procedural safeguards, such as oral hearings, which are standard in other areas of competition law. CCIA Europe believes that these gaps create a climate of legal uncertainty that risks future annulments of Commission decisions by the EU Court of Justice, which dampens the willingness to innovate in Europe.
Beyond procedural concerns, the real-world effects of these frictions are already becoming apparent, with a majority of EU users reporting a worse online experience under the DMA.
At the same time, a fundamental tension has emerged around user security, where platforms are caught between DMA compliance and maintaining robust protections for consumers. CCIA Europe warns that unless the DMA review addresses these systemic issues, the framework risks degrading both user experience and online safety.
The following can be attributed to CCIA Europe’s Senior Policy Manager, Maria Teresa Stecher:
“The question is no longer whether the EU can regulate digital markets, but whether it can do so in a way that delivers tangible benefits for consumers, businesses, and innovation. For the DMA to work, we need clear rules and predictable enforcement, not today’s procedural ‘black box’ that creates legal risk and discourages investment.”
The following can be attributed to CCIA Europe’s Senior Vice President & Head of Office, Daniel Friedlaender:
“We urge the European Commission to carry out a truly impartial review of the Digital Markets Act, one that takes seriously the reported procedural shortcomings, degraded consumer experience, and market frictions.”
“If the DMA review simply concludes that everything is fine, without addressing these structural problems, something must have gone wrong in the process. It would be a missed opportunity to secure Europe’s long-term digital competitiveness and may suggest that important real-world challenges were not fully reflected in the Commission’s assessment.”
