The following is an abstract of the speech given by James Waterworth, Director of EU Public Policy, Amazon, at the European Competition Day in Brussels, on 23rd April 2026.
Amazon is a key contributor to the European industry and economy. Our business is fundamentally physical, not digital. The retail market in the EU is extremely competitive and dynamic—in every European country we compete against retailers that are larger than us.
We support European consumers and businesses: more than 100,000 European SMEs sell on Amazon, generating 13.5 billion EUR within the EU and creating over 350,000 jobs. We have many data centres in Europe for our EU customers and are deeply rooted in European industry, buying products and services from companies like Daimler Truck, Maersk, and Arianespace – unlike purely digital players.
Now turning to the DMA: we took compliance seriously from day one. We implemented key obligations a year early through our voluntary settlement with the Commission. We are in near-daily contact with relevant officials and provided dozens of submissions. These efforts involved hundreds of people working for over a year and demonstrated our commitment to compliance.
However, the main challenges with this regulation are first at the level of design, then in terms of practical consequences. The DMA follows a one-size-fits-all approach. Designation is triggered by quantitative thresholds—turnover and user numbers—with no account taken of the competitive environment in which a given service operates. The DMA does not distinguish between fundamentally different types of businesses. It applies the same obligations regardless of whether a company sells digital services or physical goods, whether it operates across all 27 Member States or only 9, whether switching is genuinely difficult for users or happens naturally every day. That is a fundamental design flaw. The DMA was not built for retail. It's a regulation that ignores the realities of the retail sector in Europe and means that there is one rule for us and another for everyone else.
This creates real and unjustified distortions. We are primarily a retailer—our business is fundamentally physical, not digital. We are not the largest retailer in any European country, yet we are the only retailer—online or offline—subject to the DMA. Achieving the goals of the DMA such as enhancing contestability while preserving or enhancing innovation is important. As a general principle, to do this we need to ensure strong dialogue and cooperation between the private and public sectors.
In our case given Amazon is a retailer that means continuing to ensure that the highly skilled merchandisers, procurement and customer service professionals design the best experience for customers, which is also good to brands and sellers. They test, iterate, and optimize based on what customers actually want. That expertise is what makes our store valuable. This is important for every retailer. We should aim to preserve this artistry and innovation as compliance with the DMA is discussed. We hope that we continue to be able to engage in normal retail practices — the same ones every other retailer uses every day — not be recharacterized as prohibited simply because they happen online.
Moving from theory to practice: the design flaws I've described have had real consequences. The DMA has diverted hundreds of millions of euros from innovation and job creation, made the digital experience worse for consumers, and done little to make services more affordable.
There are two specific challenges we've encountered in practice. First, the regulatory fragmentation, since the DMA was supposed to create a single European rulebook, and that promise is not being kept.
The FCO case is the clearest example. In February, the German Federal Cartel Office issued a decision on Amazon Store features already under DMA scrutiny by the Commission—a decision we are vigorously appealing because it directly conflicts with EU competition law and consumer standards. The FCO would force Amazon to be the only retailer in Germany required to promote uncompetitive prices to customers, which makes no sense for customers, selling partners, or competition.
Two proceedings, running in parallel, applying different legal standards, potentially reaching contradictory conclusions. Rather than the single rulebook we were promised, we face overlapping and contradictory enforcement that weakens the Single Market and creates legal uncertainty for businesses trying to comply in good faith.
The regulation has stalled investment, damaged the consumer experience, and done nothing to address the challenges of affordability. The DMA review needs to be the moment when we fix these fundamental problems with the regulation.
The second challenge is a fundamental tension between the DMA's requirements and our obligations under GDPR—and it illustrates a broader problem with how the DMA interacts with other EU law.
The DMA requires us to share customer data with any third party a customer authorizes. In principle, that sounds reasonable. But in practice, 75% of the requests we receive come from entities outside the EU—many from jurisdictions that don't respect GDPR, many appearing to be data brokers or aggregators with opaque privacy policies.
Here's the problem: GDPR requires us to protect our customers' data. But the DMA seems to leave us little room to do that. If we apply meaningful security checks, we risk DMA non-compliance. If we don't, we risk breaching GDPR and exposing our customers to real harm. We cannot comply with both laws at the same time.
This sets a dangerous precedent: that GDPR rights—including privacy as a fundamental right—simply fall away when they conflict with a DMA obligation. That is not how fundamental rights are supposed to work.
We're seeing data-sharing requests from opaque brokers from outside the EU, yet the DMA effectively strips away our ability to say "no". We're witnessing an contradiction between the DMA and GDPR. We need to hear the EC's response to how companies should comply with two laws that oppose each other.
The DMA's objectives—contestability, fairness, innovation—are sound and Amazon supports appropriate regulation.
We need to learn from implementation experience: compliance costs are vastly higher than estimated, competitive distortion favors unregulated platforms and regulatory fragmentation undermines the Single Market.
What Europe needs is proportionate, coherent enforcement that distinguishes genuine competitive harm from standard commercial practices, resolves conflicts between regulations, and maintains conditions for continued investment and innovation.
