Brussels Goes Gate-Hunting: AWS, Azure, and the DMA’s Cloud Problem
The European Commission wants to treat cloud computing as a gatekeeper market. That is the wrong diagnosis, and it would lead to the wrong cure.
The Commission’s preliminary view that Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure should be designated as Digital Markets Act (DMA) gatekeepers for cloud-computing services is more than another skirmish in Brussels’ long campaign against large technology companies. It is a test of whether the European Union will use competition policy to protect competitive rivalry or to administer digital markets by regulatory fiat.
The Commission says AWS and Azure are, respectively, the largest and second-largest cloud providers in the EU and that each serves as an “important gateway.” Yet no cloud provider satisfies the DMA’s ordinary quantitative thresholds. A formal decision is expected later in 2026, reportedly in December. The intervening months should not become a procedural pause. They should be used to ask the question the preliminary finding largely assumes away: Do enterprise cloud services fit the gatekeeper model at all?
The answer is no. The Commission’s cloud theory would extend an already defective ex ante regime into a market defined by enterprise procurement, multi-cloud strategies, rapid technological change, falling unit costs, and substantial ongoing investment. It also overlaps with the EU’s own cloud-specific Data Act, which already addresses switching, portability, interoperability, and egress fees. If the Commission’s goal is to make Europe more competitive and innovative, these proposed designations would move policy in precisely the wrong direction.