Regulating digital platforms: Streamlining the interaction between the Digital Markets Act and national competition regimes

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) will rebalance the relationship between the European Commission and national competition authorities. While Regulation 1/2003 made national competition authorities competent alongside the Commission to apply and enforce the EU competition rules, the Commission is the sole enforcer of the DMA. At the same time, national competition authorities have become increasingly proactive in taking up pioneering competition investigations and legislators at the national level have already adopted additional rules complementing the DMA. While such developments pose risks in terms of unnecessary duplication and regulatory fragmentation across the EU, the co-existence of different EU and national rules can also allow for learning-by-doing. Effective coordination between the DMA and national competition regimes is therefore key to ensure that the parallel existence of EU and national regulation is a strength rather than a weakness of the overall framework of economic regulation for digital markets.