Ribera in Washington, Newsletter

Key diary dates

• Monday 31 March – Commission statement before European Parliament plenary on need to ensure democratic pluralism, strengthen integrity, transparency and anticorruption policies in the EU.

• Wednesday 2 April - US reciprocal tariffs are due to enter into force affecting imports from EU.

• Wednesday 2 April - Friday 4 April – Annual American Bar Association Spring gathering of international competition and data privacy enforcers in Washington DC, including EVP Teresa Ribera.

In spotlight

Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera will be in Washington in her capacity as the Commission’s competition chief this week for the annual Spring Meeting of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) antitrust section.

The event sees leaders of the world’s antitrust regulators come together and compare notes in the US capital. This year’s event will take place under the cosh of a tariff war however, and with US hosts notably missing.

The ABA - America's largest voluntary lawyer group - is at loggerheads with the new Trump administration, which it is suing over the decision to shut down the US Agency for International Development.

The administration has hit back, with the two key US regulators – the Department of Justice’s (DoJ) Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) both boycotting ABA events.

An enforcers panel held on Friday at the ABA Spring Meeting usually assembles the FTC Chairman and Antitrust Division’s Assistant Attorney General with the European Commissioner. This week’s main stage show at the event will see Ribera on stage without her US counterparts however.

Ribera will however get the chance to meet with new Trump appointees the FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson and the DoJ’s Gail Slater in events created on the sidelines, which the officials will be able to attend without breaking their ban on attending ABA events.

For example start-up organisation Y Combinator is hosting a ‘Little Tech Summit’ under the title ‘Make Competition Great Again’ on Wednesday at which the three are scheduled to speak on a panel.

Ferguson’s public statements  about reversing the “anti-business agenda”, “war on mergers” and “politically motivated investigations” of his Biden-appointed predecessor Lina Khan, raise the prospect of some spicy messaging for Ribera on EU tech enforcement through its competition and Digital Markets Act enforcement.

Trump’s administration has been baring its teeth over the EU enforcement of US Big Tech. Vice President JD Vance, who spoke in Paris at the AI Action Summit in February, said the US will not accept others "tightening the screws" on US companies. Companies such as Meta also seem keen to co-opt Trump into pushing back against rules affecting online platforms, including the EU’s AI Act, Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA).

It may help that DMA sanctions the EU is set to issue this week on Apple and Facebook owner Meta - coinciding with Ribera’s trip to Washington - are reported expected to be quite low, as Brussels seeks to avoid calm tensions with the White House.

Those ABA sideline meetings will be closely watched to gauge how much if at all this week’s DMA decisions will mollify Ribera’s US counterparts.

Policy newsmakers

Energy visions

Germany’s envoronment minister Steffi Lemke, acknowledged a swing to the right in recent elections meant last week's would likely to be her last EU Council summit. She was among ministers voicing broad support for EU governments to open negotiations on a 2040 emissions reduction target as soon as possible. Hungary remained sceptical, however, with minister Anikó Raisz restating its long-standing position that the decision was of such import that it could only be made by the unanimous agreement of EU heads of government – meaning the country’s premier Viktor Orbán could wield a veto.

Policy Poll

Data brief