BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission said on Tuesday it was assessing its cases against Apple, Google and Meta and that President-elect Donald Trump’s impending arrival in the White House did not affect its commitment to enforcing its laws on big tech.
The European Commission has carried out a series of investigations into U.S. tech firms under its Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, which seek to make large platforms adhere to market rules and act against illegal content.
Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg said Europe was “institutionalizing censorship”.
“We have been very clear that no matter which administration is in place in third countries, this will not affect our enforcement work,” a Commission spokesperson told the EU’s executive’s daily briefing.
The Financial Times reported that the European Commission was reassessing its investigations of Apple, Meta and Google in a review that could lead it to scale back or change its investigations that could lead to fines as U.S. groups urge Trump to intervene.
The Commission denied it was carrying out a review.
“What we do have is upcoming meetings to assess maturity of cases, to assess the allocation of resources and the general readiness of the investigation,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said that the cases were still being handled at a technical level and so not reached a point at which decisions could be taken.
“Obviously there may be a political reality which puts pressure on the technical work, but we need to distinguish the two stages because we need to have a court-proof investigation,” another spokesperson said.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer and Philip Blenkinsop)
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