Brussels 23rd July 2026, EBM NEWSDESK ANALSYSIS, By Nick Staunton
The European Commission fined Google €890m for breaking the Digital Markets Act, and Teresa Ribera stood up to say it was Europe’s duty to defend the rule of law. On the same afternoon, in Washington, Jamieson Greer signed tariffs on 60 economies under a statute chosen precisely because it would survive a court challenge. Two capitals acted on the same day. One of them was building something designed to last
The fine comes to 0.22 per cent of Google’s turnover. The Digital Markets Act allows up to 10 per cent, rising to 20 for repeat offences. So Brussels reached for roughly one forty-fifth of what its own law permits, and wrapped it in the language of constitutional defiance. That gap between the rhetoric and the arithmetic is the story here, and European business should look at it hard, because it tells you what Brussels thinks its own enforcement is worth when Washington is watching.
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SubscribeWhat Google was actually fined for
There are two decisions. The Commission fined Google €460m for favouring its own services in search results, including shopping, hotels, flights and transport, over competitors. It fined a further €430m because Google stopped app developers telling their own customers about cheaper offers available outside the Play Store.
Both findings are narrow and both are correct. If you have ever tried to book a hotel through Google and found the company’s own panel sitting above every independent comparison site, you have seen the first one. If you have ever wondered why a subscription costs more inside an app than on the same company’s website, you have met the second.
This is the first time Google has been penalised under the DMA. It is the largest DMA fine to date, ahead of the €500m against Apple and the €200m against Meta last year. Google’s total European liabilities now run past €10bn.
The number is the message, and the message is caution
We wrote in May that Brussels was preparing a fine deliberately small enough to avoid a fight, and that the size would be the tell. That is exactly what arrived.
Look at the construction. The Play Store penalty covers only March 2024 to December 2025, a closed window that conveniently ends eighteen months ago. A senior Commission official conceded that Google still favours its own services. So the conduct continues, and the fine stops.
The Commission’s answer is that it wants compliance rather than confrontation, and that the real weapon is periodic penalty payments if Google fails to fix things. Henna Virkkunen put it plainly: Brussels is now expecting Google to come forward with solutions.
That is a defensible strategy. It is not a strategy you dress in the language of defending the rule of law. Either the breach was serious enough to warrant a serious number, or it was a negotiation. Presenting a negotiation as a constitutional stand invites everyone to notice the difference.
Ribera is right on the principle
Her actual words were good. Europe cannot make decisions based on what somebody else is trying to tell it to do. It is the Commission’s job to apply laws passed by European legislators, however those laws are received abroad. She noted, correctly, that some language coming out of the US government is not especially friendly to European law.
Donald Trump has called these fines overseas extortion and a form of taxation, and has threatened substantial additional tariffs in response. Greer said within hours that European penalties are creating massive uncertainty for American exports and threaten transatlantic trade stability.
Read that again. A tariff regime built on a forced-labour finding against Europe is described as lawful process. A fine of 0.22 per cent of turnover under a law passed by an elected parliament is described as a threat to stability. Brussels should say so out loud rather than reaching for the smallest number it can defend.
Google’s defence deserves a proper answer
The company called the decision product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants, with European businesses and consumers taking the hit. That is not nothing. Some DMA remedies have made search results in Europe visibly worse, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.
But that is an argument about remedy design, not about whether self-preferencing happened. The Commission has been poor at explaining what a better Google search page would look like. Google has been poorer at proposing one.
The verdict
Europe now runs two policies at once. It insists it will not soften its digital laws under pressure, having already accepted a 15 per cent tariff ceiling and having so far declined to use the anti-coercion instrument it spent a year building.
You cannot claim to be defending the rule of law at a price the defendant will not notice. If the DMA matters, enforce it at a level that changes behaviour and accept the consequences. If it does not, stop talking about duty. Brussels has chosen the vocabulary of a fight and the invoice of a settlement, and Washington can read a balance sheet.
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