Germany calls on EU to tighten grip on Big Tech
Economic affairs minister Peter Altmaier urges ‘tougher oversight’ to maintain competition
Germany has urged the EU to toughen its approach to Big Tech, as part of a wider push by Berlin to boost Europe’s “digital sovereignty”.
Peter Altmaier, Germany’s economic affairs minister, recently wrote to Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, to call for a harder line on dominant online platforms such as Google and Facebook.
“In light of current developments in the global data and digital economy, we require tougher oversight of abusive practices in order to maintain competition,” said Mr Altmaier in a letter seen by the Financial Times.
“Specific rules of behaviour need to be imposed on market-dominating online platforms,” he said.
Mr Altmaier raised the issue of how to boost European tech at a summit in Dortmund last month, as he unveiled plans for a European cloud computing initiative, dubbed Gaia-X. Both France and Germany are keen to break the grip of US cloud computing companies, such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
Gaia-X would be a “competitive, safe and trustworthy data infrastructure for Europe”, said Mr Altmaier, adding that a Europe-run cloud system would “help restore our digital sovereignty” and serve as a “basis for a digital ecosystem”.
A spokesperson confirmed Mr Altmaier’s letter, saying it contained proposals “to strengthen the European economy and industry by adjusting the framework conditions for competition and state aid law.
“The goal is to counter unfair competition by state-controlled and state-subsidised companies from third countries, and to toughen up oversight of abuses by market-dominant online platforms.”
Mr Altmaier is also keen to protect the German — and by extension the European — economy from inroads by state-backed Chinese companies.
In February he unveiled an aggressive new industrial strategy that envisaged the creation of a state investment fund that would step in to pre-empt foreign takeovers of big German companies.
The strategy was designed to create “national and European champions” better able to compete with tech giants in the US and Asia and to build up German competence in critical new technologies such as AI and electric vehicles.
In his letter to Ms Vestager, he also called for changes to EU competition rules to make big M&A deals like Siemens’ planned tie-up with Alstom — which was blocked by EU authorities — much easier.
He wrote: “The global competitive situation . . . should be better taken into account in M&A cases.”