The EU surrendered to Trump over trade tariffs – now it’s in danger of capitulating again | Thierry Breton

A fresh US assault is aimed at Europe's right to regulate tech. It's an outrage - and we must resist it

• Thierry Breton is the former EU commissioner for digital affairs

Fresh threats of sanctions have just emerged from across the Atlantic, targeting Europe and any official who dares to enforce the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU's flagship law regulating tech platforms and digital operations. These sanctions come with new trade barriers and unprecedented export restrictions.

How long are we, citizens of the EU, going to tolerate these threats? Submit to those who want to impose their rules, their laws, their deadlines on us? Surrender to those who now presume to dictate our fundamental democratic and moral principles, our rules for how we live together and even how we protect our own children online? Why and in whose name would we agree to cast aside our twin digital regulations, the DSA and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which were voted into law with clarity, courage and conviction by a landslide in the European parliament? (It is worth recalling that MEPs voted for the DMA by 588 votes to 11, with 31 abstentions, and for the DSA by 539 votes to 54, with 30 abstentions.)

Thierry Breton was the European commissioner for the internal market and digital affairs until September 2024 and is a former minister for the economy and finance in France