Microsoft Azure and AWS May Be Brought Under EU Digital Markets Act Regulation
Miles Bennett
The European Commission could declare as soon as next week that Microsoft Azure and AWS appear to meet the Digital Markets Act's criteria — if confirmed by year-end, both cloud giants would face mandatory interoperability, anti-lock-in, and anti-self-preferencing rules, marking the EU's first extension of DMA enforcement from social media and mobile into cloud infrastructure.
What exactly is the EU about to do?
Bloomberg reported on June 18 that the European Commission may publish preliminary findings as soon as next week: Azure and AWS appear to meet the Digital Markets Act's gatekeeper criteria.
The DMA — an EU law designed to constrain dominant platforms before abuse takes hold — would impose three core obligations: interoperability, limits on customer lock-in, and a ban on self-preferencing.
This means → cloud providers could no longer use technical barriers to trap customers on their platform; data and services must flow across providers.
A final decision is expected by year-end, though the timeline may shift.
Why now? What went wrong in the cloud market?
Last November the Commission concluded that Microsoft and Amazon hold "a very strong position" in cloud services, and opened a formal market investigation.
The immediate backdrop: multiple major outages. One AWS disruption lasted roughly 15 hours, hitting Apple, McDonald's, Epic Games, and hundreds of other companies.
Azure also suffered a failure in October that blocked Alaska Airlines check-ins and halted voting inside the Scottish Parliament.
In plain terms = too many critical services worldwide depend on a handful of cloud providers — when one goes down, airlines and governments go down with it. That is precisely the risk the EU wants to address.
Who has already been fined — and how hard?
The DMA has already drawn first blood: Apple was fined €500 million and Meta €200 million for alleged violations.
This means → the EU is not just talking. From social platforms to mobile ecosystems, the DMA's enforcement chain is proven — cloud is the next target.
The law has also become a friction point in EU-US trade discussions, elevating tech regulation from an industry issue to a diplomatic one.
What does this mean for the cloud market?
If Azure and AWS are ultimately designated as gatekeepers, they must open interfaces and lower migration barriers. This reflects the EU's core logic: intervene before abuse takes shape.
In plain terms = the EU does not wait for wrongdoing and then punish — it sets the rules and applies the constraints first, to prevent monopoly from forming.
The Commission and Microsoft both declined to comment; AWS did not immediately respond — the silence from all three parties itself signals how sensitive the matter is.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.