BEP Joins Coalition Urging EU to Enforce Digital Markets Act Penalties on Alphabet

Balanced Economy Project, along with over 30 other civil society organisations are have written to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to uphold the decision to fine Google’s parent company Alphabet under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

The letter is a response to report that von der Leyen personally intervened to postpone penalties DG COMP had been preparing to impose in March. The Commission has been slow to impose a penalty after it notified Google in March 2025 that its Search compliance falls short of the DMA’s self-preferencing ban. The investigation opened two years ago, and yet we continue to await a decision. The law’s indicative deadline is 12 months. 

The co-signatories say, “The EU’s inability to effectively tackle the market dominance of digital gatekeepers has caused significant damage to Europe’s innovators and small businesses, degraded our information environment, and further consolidated our dependence on a handful of foreign monopolists.”

Balanced Economy Project has been calling for governments to build a new model for the digital economy that supports self-determination, and prioritises the common good over private profit. This means governments resisting pressure from big tech, the finance industry, and the US administration to discipline EU digital regulation and entrench these dominant forces’ preferred model of global digital order.

The full letter is available here.

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