The top American basketball league has a megabucks plan to take over the European market. But it’s no slam dunk. European officials and major sports leagues are trying to hamstring the National Basketball Association — home to global superstars including LeBron James and Steph Curry — before it can get off the ground ahead of a mooted 2027 launch in key cities around the continent. Proponents of the NBA-backed European competition reckon it will be an essential investment for a widely popular sport that doesn’t turn a massive profit in Europe across smaller domestic tournaments. Opponents say the global behemoth’s entry across the continent would stifle national basketball leagues and instead funnel cash to American companies. The divide comes at a moment of major commercial and political tension, with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration attempting to bend European legislators and regulators to its America-first agenda. Basketball also marks the latest clash in a broader debate over the European sports model, which is based on promotion and relegation between leagues, and solidarity payments across a pyramidal structure. The NBA operates under the American sports model, in which franchises maintain permanent places in closed leagues, generating significant revenues for team owners and creating highly paid superstars matched only by top European football clubs. For this account of the backroom negotiating currently taking place between some of the world’s most powerful sports officials, POLITICO spoke to several European political figures, sports executives and industry heavyweights with direct knowledge of talks, some of whom were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.   NBA executives have already been sounding out Europe’s biggest multi-sport club owners and team officials about backing the project, triggering unease from other parts of the continent’s sports establishment. “The main reason we don’t support NBA Europe is that closed leagues and competitions benefit only the top percent of the commercially successful clubs, but cause significant harm to the sport at national level,” one senior European government official told POLITICO.  While the EU doesn’t run sports in Europe, it does police the marketplace in which sports operate — and officials were quick to defend the values the EU seeks to uphold.  “As policymakers, including at EU level, there is a clear duty to uphold the competition acquis, but also to give full weight to the wider EU values repeatedly underlined in court judgments, such as solidarity, openness, and fairness,” EU Sports Commissioner Glenn Micallef told POLITICO.  He added: “The current debate suggests that this balance requires recalibration, placing greater emphasis on those values to safeguard the integrity of European sport and its pyramidal model.” PRIVATE NEGOTIATIONS Business titans have long eyed the European sports market as an attractive commercial proposition, buying clubs and even moving to upend existing competitions. Proponents of the NBA-backed European competition reckon it will be an essential investment for a widely popular sport that doesn’t turn a massive profit in Europe across smaller domestic tournaments. | Gray Mortimore/Getty Images A previous attempt to set up a semi-closed American-style football league in Europe — the ill-fated Super League bid by a group of 12 leading clubs in 2021 — hit a wall of political and public resistance. Basketball is a slightly different case as the continent’s flagship Euroleague is already a semi-closed competition — a design that has faced significant blowback since its launch around the turn of the century. But NBA critics are sounding the alarm as crunch talks intensify about the potential launch in 12 proposed cities including Rome, Berlin and Madrid. Senior officials from the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) met with Micallef and key EU sports figures in Brussels earlier this month, where they pressed the case that the new league — with its semi-closed structure but pathway to Europe for clubs that perform well in their domestic leagues — would be a European success story. “Current developments in European basketball highlight long-standing concerns around closed league models,” Micallef said after the meeting, in remarks that may be interpreted as a subtle warning about the American sports model. “They also invite reflection on the growing role of investment in sport, recognising that such investment can be welcome and beneficial provided it respects sound governance principles and remains aligned with Europe’s sporting values, traditions, and structures.” He added: “While breakaway competitions usually promise growth and stability, restricting open competition comes at the expense of national leagues and the wider sporting pyramid: a lesson other sports should consider carefully.” A previous attempt to set up a semi-closed American-style football league in Europe — the ill-fated Super League bid by a group of 12 leading clubs in 2021 — hit a wall of political and public resistance. | Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Two industry officials told POLITICO that Spain’s La Liga — the domestic football league — held a meeting with the NBA to emphasize that the format presented is contrary to the European sports model and that, if implemented, it would be met with staunch opposition from EU institutions and other sporting organizations from across Europe.  NBA officials have been approaching major European football and multi-sports club owners over the past year about joining the basketball project, according to one executive with direct knowledge of negotiations. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and his deputy Mark Tatum have been talking regularly to Paris Saint-Germain owner Nasser al-Khelaifi, a powerful sports leader from Doha, to try and convince Qatar Sports Investments to own a new franchise in Paris — as part of the PSG group of sports clubs. The American sports bosses have also conducted talks with Barcelona and Real Madrid, the executive said. “Our conversations with various stakeholders in Europe have reinforced our belief that an enormous opportunity exists around the creation of a new league on the continent,” Silver said in a statement. “Together with FIBA, we look forward to engaging prospective clubs and ownership groups that share our vision for the game’s potential in Europe.” In an announcement Monday that the two parties were pressing ahead with the European expansion, FIBA Secretary-General Andreas Zagklis said: “The format of the league respects European sport model principles by offering any ambitious club in the continent a fair pathway to the top. The project is conceived in a way that will improve the sustainability of the entire European basketball ecosystem, including players, clubs, leagues and national federations, by generating a knock-on effect that will strongly benefit basketball fans throughout Europe.” Keen to assuage EU regulatory concerns, the NBA and FIBA added that they plan to dedicate financial support and resources to development throughout Europe’s basketball ecosystem. NO DOMINATION The announcement by the NBA and FIBA of some “permanent spots” in the league is central to the looming resistance in Brussels, which is also skeptical about the economic benefits for Europe. “What about the governance and economic value?” said Bogdan Zdrojewski, an MEP from the conservative European People’s Party group in the European Parliament. “It seems that with the NBA Europe these risk being siphoned out of Europe, leading to a lack of accountability on governance and a staggeringly high loss of economic value if we look at how the economic return — TV rights, sponsorships — generated in Europe will be systematically funneled to U.S.-based holding entities.” Zdrojewski added, “We need to look carefully at how the economic model is likely to lead to a corporate shift with traditional clubs being excluded in favor of global investment funds and state-backed clubs, who will be the only ones able to afford the prohibitive costs like the estimated $500 million to $1 billion founding franchise fees.”  At a meeting of EU sports ministers in Brussels last month, several countries — including Italy, France and Slovenia — spoke out against the NBA’s plans. Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda also recently urged “basketball organizations on both sides of the Atlantic to cooperate, not compete, to take into account and appreciate the deep traditions of European basketball, and not to forget that values come before commercial interests.” Those who have built up European basketball in its current form agree.  “European basketball is built on history, identity and community. Fans here are not a market to be conquered; they are the people who have sustained clubs for decades, across generations,” said Paulius Motiejunas, CEO of the existing top competition Euroleague Basketball. “Any new project should start by respecting that and by strengthening the entire pyramid: elite competition, domestic leagues, and grassroots.” But, he added, collaboration is possible “if the goal is genuinely to grow basketball in Europe.” His terms, he said, were simple: “It has to be a partnership, not a takeover or, as they have mentioned, domination.”

The International Olympic Committee said Thursday that youth athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports should be allowed to compete under their national flag and anthem, easing restrictions on Russian athletes that have been in place since the country’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The updated position applies to the 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, Senegal, but it did not mention the Milan Cortina Winter Games next year, where Russian athletes are expected to compete as neutral competitors under stringent regulations. “With its considerations today, the Olympic Summit recognised that athletes, and in particular youth athletes, should not be held accountable for the actions of their governments — sport is their access to hope, and a way to show that all athletes can respect the same rules and each another,” the IOC said in a statement. Still, the IOC maintained its guidance that Russia should not be allowed to host international sports events, although it said events could be hosted in Belarus. It also reiterated that restrictions on government officials from Russia and Belarus should stay in place for both youth and adult sports events. Russia has long faced scrutiny from the IOC over allegations of doping, with a number of Russian athletes who competed in the 2014 Sochi Olympics being stripped of their medals. IOC President Kirsty Coventry, who took the helm of the organization in June, has signaled that she would be open to seeing Russia compete in the 2026 Olympic Games, sparking a fierce backlash from Ukraine. The decision came out of this week’s Olympic Summit in Switzerland, at which key stakeholders decided to take up a recommendation from the committee’s Executive Board to change its guidance for Russian youth athletes. In its statement, the IOC said, “The Summit also reaffirmed that athletes have a fundamental right to access sport across the world, and to compete free from political interference or pressure from governmental organisations.” European soccer governing body UEFA attempted to allow Russian youth to participate in its competitions in 2023 but ultimately scuttled the effort following opposition from countries including Ukraine.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into whether Google breached EU competition rules by using the content of web publishers, as well as video uploaded to YouTube, for artificial intelligence purposes. The investigation will examine whether Google is distorting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, or by granting itself privileged access to such content, thus placing rival AI models at a disadvantage, the Commission said on Tuesday. In a statement, the EU executive said it was concerned that Google may have used the content of web publishers to provide generative AI-powered services on its search results pages without appropriate compensation to publishers, and without offering them the possibility to refuse such use of their content. Further, it said that the U.S. search giant may have used video and other content uploaded on YouTube to train Google’s generative AI models without compensating creators and without offering them the possibility to refuse such use of their content. The formal antitrust probe follows Google’s rollout of AI-driven search results, which resulted in a drop in traffic to online news sites. Google was fined nearly €3 billion in September for abusing its dominance in online advertising. It has proposed technical remedies over that penalty, but resisted a call by EU competition chief Teresa Ribera to break itself up.

Soccer may be the world’s most popular pastime, but much about Friday’s lottery draw setting the match schedule for next summer’s World Cup has been programmed with just one fan in mind. Never before has the sports governing body given out a peace prize to a politician eager for one, or booked the Village People and Andrea Bocelli to play alongside. President Donald Trump’s appearance on the Kennedy Center stage will be at least his seventh encounter this year with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who has logged more face time with Trump this year than any world leader. Infantino’s savvy navigation of the American political scene has helped FIFA build institutional support for a tournament facing unprecedented logistical complications. But that success is beginning to weaken Infantino, as the third-term FIFA president faces newfound internal opposition for his over-the-top courtship of Trump. Our interviews with six international soccer officials across three continents reveal widespread frustration with Infantino’s decision to side with Trump even as White House policies cause chaos for World Cup-bound teams, fans and local organizers, clashing with Infantino’s promise to have a tournament that welcomes the world. “[FIFA] has always promoted a very cozy, close relationship with politicians and political actors in a variety of ways, including by having them in their bodies or running the National Football Associations, for example,” said Miguel Maduro, the chairman of FIFA’s governance and review committee between 2016 and 2017. “This said, the extent of this cozy relationship that we’ve seen and and the public character that has been assumed between Mr. Infantino and Mr. Trump is different even from what we saw in the past,” said Maduro. “It’s not that things like that didn’t happen in the past, but it didn’t happen so obviously and so emphatically as they do now.” Our reporting found that Infantino did not inform his 37-member FIFA Council before creating the FIFA Peace Prize this year, three people familiar with the matter told POLITICO. Over the past year, at least three of FIFA’s eight vice presidents have publicly or privately expressed their concerns about the lengths Infantino is willing to go to please Trump. While Infantino has won his last two terms unopposed, when he stands next for reelection in 2027 he will likely have to answer to FIFA’s 211 member federations for his willing entanglement in the controversies of American politics. Infantino’s allies say that those opposed to many of his soccer-related initiatives — focused on growing the game in emerging markets and expanding FIFA’s flagship tournaments — are using his Trump ties to exploit differences on unrelated issues. “If a challenger to Gianni for the 2027 election emerges, it will be in the next six to eight months and the World Cup will be a litmus test,” said a person involved with World Cup planning granted anonymity to characterize private conversations with top soccer officials. “If something goes off the rails or somebody decides they want to make a run against him, they’re going to use his relationship with Trump to exploit the cracks.” THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENTS Infantino launched his first campaign for FIFA’s presidency as an underdog. A corruption scandal had toppled much of FIFA’s leadership in 2015, forcing a so-called “extraordinary congress” the next year in which members would vote to decide who would complete the unfinished term vacated by the newly suspended president Sepp Blatter. FIFA, comprised of national soccer federations, picks its president through a secret ballot of those members — one nation, one vote. To win in a multi-candidate field, one must capture two-thirds of the total ballots cast, with rounds of voting until a single candidate locks in a two-way majority. The favorite to succeed Blatter was Sheik Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, a Bahraini royal who headed the Asian Football Confederation and appeared to have stitched together a coalition of Asian and African nations. Infantino, a polyglot Swiss-Italian lawyer who had spent seven years as secretary general of European confederation UEFA, pitched himself as someone who could disperse the organization’s wealth back to member countries. “The money of FIFA is your money,” Infantino said in a speech shortly before the vote. “It is not the money of the FIFA president. It’s your money.” Infantino and Al Khalifa ran neck-in-neck in the first round. With a clear two-person race, the United States — which had been supporting Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein of Jordan, who finished a distant third — switched its vote to Infantino in the second round, triggering a rush of support from the Western Hemisphere that gave Infantino a conclusive 115-vote total. A fourth candidate, former French diplomat Jérome Champagne, credited Infantino’s victory to “a strong alliance between Europe and North America and the Anglo-Saxon world.” “Prepare yourself well but be vigilant,” Blatter warned Infantino upon his election in a public letter. “While everyone supports you and tells you nice words, know that once you are the president, friends become rare.” Once in office, Infantino’s initiatives were focused on expanding FIFA’s most valuable properties. He converted a ten-day, exhibition-like competition among seven regional club champions into the month-long FIFA Club World Cup. He also pushed, with mixed success, to grow the size and scope of the World Cup and increase its frequency. In 2017, Infantino announced that the first World Cup under an expanded format — up from 32 countries participating to 48, adding a week of matches to the schedule — would take place in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Facing the first tournament in which hosting responsibilities would be shared by three countries, Infantino visited Trump to secure assurances of government support. Infantino went on to win subsequent terms in 2019 and 2023, and when Trump returned to the White House for his second, in 2025, their political trajectories became permanently intertwined. Infantino set out to raise his profile in American life and his relationships with the country’s political class, including through a campaign-style tour through many of the American cities hosting matches for the inaugural Club World Cup in 2025 and the World Cup the following summer. Infantino sat next to Trump at the tournament’s final, held at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium in July, dragging him onto the winners’ platform as Infantino went to award a trophy and medals to champions Chelsea. Trump lingered awkwardly on stage to the befuddlement of Chelsea’s players, who had not expected they would share the moment with an American politician. Other appearances with Trump placed Infantino squarely between a president intent on solving overseas conflicts and punishing foes, while closing American borders to visitors and trade, and FIFA member nations who may hold starkly different views, or worse. Infantino stood quietly in the Oval Office as he said he would not rule out strikes against fellow World Cup co-host Mexico to target drug cartels, and joined Trump’s entourage on a trip designed to cultivate investment opportunities in the Persian Gulf. When FIFA had to delay the opening of its annual congress in Asuncion, Paraguay, to accommodate Infantino’s travel from a Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh, two FIFA vice presidents were among those who joined English Football Association chairwoman Debbie Hewitt and other federation heads exiting in protest. European confederation UEFA — with 55 member nations, FIFA’s largest — attacked him with unusually pointed language. “To have the timetable changed at the last minute for what appears to be simply to accommodate private political interests,” UEFA wrote in its statement, “does the game no service and appears to put its interests second.” GIANNI ON THE SPOT In September, Trump said he would try to move scheduled World Cup matches out of Democratic-run jurisdictions that are “even a little bit dangerous.” Infantino, whose organization had spent years vetting and preparing those cities for the tournament, said nothing. But a potential rival to Infantino’s leadership took issue with both the American president’s threat — since repeated but not acted upon — and the FIFA president’s silence. “It’s FIFA’s tournament, FIFA’s jurisdiction, FIFA makes those decisions,” FIFA vice president Victor Montagliani, the organization’s leading figure from North America, said at a sports-business conference in London six days later. While president of the Canadian Soccer Association, Montagliani helped to secure his country’s participation in the three-way so-called “United Bid” for next summer’s World Cup. (The Vancouver insurance executive also helped bring the Women’s World Cup to Canada in 2015.) He now serves as president of CONCACAF, the 41-member regional federation encompassing the 41 nations of North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Close to Prime Minister Mark Carney, Montagliani has come to believe Infantino has catered too much to Trump for a tournament realized through the cooperation of three nations, according to three of the people familiar with the dynamics of FIFA’s leadership. (Montagliani declined an interview request.) The leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada will all participate in a ceremonial ball draw in today’s draw. “With all due respect to current world leaders, football is bigger than them and football will survive their regime and their government and their slogans,” Montagliani told an interviewer at the London conference in late September. “That’s the beauty of our game, is that it is bigger than any individual and bigger than any country.” Montagliani’s “FIFA’s jurisdiction” remarks did not land well with Infantino’s inner sanctum. “It is ultimately the government’s responsibility to decide what’s in the best interest of public safety,” FIFA said in a statement to POLITICO in October after Trump’s next round of threats to relocate matches. The relationship between Infantino and Montagliani has further soured in recent months as Trump reignited tensions between Washington and Ottawa over an anti-tariff ad taking aim at U.S. trade policy, according to a person close to Montagliani granted anonymity to candidly characterize his thinking. Montagliani has his own thoughts on how far relationships with government figures should go but respects Infantino’s perspective, that person said, maintaining the two men had a good relationship despite occasional differences. Others around FIFA have their own parochial concerns with Trump. Despite being among the first teams to qualify for the tournament, Iran threatened to boycott Friday’s draw because some members of its delegation were denied visas for travel to Washington. According to a FIFA official, Iran ultimately reversed course and sent Iranian head coach Ardeshir Ghalenoy after FIFA worked closely with the U.S. government and Iran’s soccer federation. Another qualifying team, Haiti, is also covered by the 19-country travel ban that Trump signed in June. The State Department said that while the policy has a specific carveout for World Cup competitors and their families, the exception will not be applied to fans or spectators. The president of the Japanese Football Association, Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, told POLITICO in an interview last month that he was worried that Trump’s immigration policies could subject Japanese travelers to “deportations happening unnecessarily.” Infantino has stopped short of pressuring Trump to make exceptions to immigration policy for the sake of soccer. FIFA officials have said that when it chooses a tournament location it does not expect that country to significantly alter its immigration laws or vetting standards for the tournament, although many past hosts have chosen to relax visa requirements for World Cup ticketholders. Many European countries’ soccer federations, led by Ireland and Norway, have pushed to ban Israel from international soccer due to its military invasion of Gaza. The movement received an apparent boost from UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin, who supported unfurling a banner that read “Stop Killing Children; Stop Killing Civilians” on the field before a UEFA Super Cup match in August. “If such a big thing is going on, such a terrible thing that doesn’t allow me to sleep — not me, all my colleagues,” — nobody in this organization said we shouldn’t do it. No one,” Čeferin told POLITICO in August. “Then you have to do what is the right thing to do.” European countries were set on a collision with Trump, whose State Department indicated it would work to “fully stop any effort to attempt to ban Israel’s national soccer team from the World Cup.” UEFA pulled back on a planned vote over Israel’s place as a Trump-negotiated peace agreement took hold. Infantino joined Trump and other heads of state in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, for a summit to implement the agreement’s first phase. Nothing threatens to awaken opposition to Infantino as much as his decision to invent a FIFA Peace Prize just as Trump began to complain in October about being passed over for one from the Norwegian Nobel Committee. According to a draft run-of-show for Friday’s draw, Trump is scheduled to speak for two minutes today after receiving the Peace Prize. “He is just implementing what he said he would do,” Infantino said at an American Business Forum in Miami, also attended by Trump, on the day news of the prize was made public. “So I think we should all support what he’s doing because I think it’s looking pretty good.” According to FIFA rules, the organization’s president needs sign-off from the 37-member FIFA council on certain items like the international match calendar, host designations for upcoming FIFA tournaments, and financial matters. FIFA’s charter does not contemplate the creation of a new prize specifically to award a world leader, but those familiar with the organization’s governance say it may violate an ethics policy that requires officers “remain politically neutral.” (In 2019, FIFA honored Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri, who previously led venerable club Boca Juniors, with its first-ever Living Football Award.) “Giving this award to someone that is an active political actor, by itself, is, at least in my opinion, likely a violation of the principle of political neutrality,” said Maduro, a Portuguese legal scholar appointed to oversee FIFA’s governance in the wake of the corruption scandal that helped bring Infantino to office. “We need to know two things: how the award was created and who then took the decision to whom the award was to be given. Both of these decisions should not be taken by the president himself.” Infantino fully bypassed the FIFA Council in deciding to create and award the prize to Trump, according to three people familiar with conversations between Infantino and the council’s members. Even the vice presidents who were given a heads-up ahead of time say they were simply being told after the decision was made. FOUR MORE YEARS? Infantino, a quintessential European first elected with support from his home continent, now sees his strongest base of support in Asia, Africa, and the Gulf countries. He won his last two terms by acclamation, after delivering on his promises to disperse the $11 billion FIFA takes in each World Cup cycle. The FIFA Forward program, launched in 2016, sent $2.8 billion back to member federations and regional confederations in its first six years, funding everything from the development of Papua New Guinea’s women’s squad to an air dome for winter training in Mongolia. But Infantino’s political choices may be costing him in Europe, where the sport is more established and national federations are less dependent on FIFA’s largesse. Infantino’s defenders say that European soccer officials, including Čeferin, have turned against him because they see his attempts to expand the World Cup and institute the Club World Cup as a threat to the primacy of their regional competitions. Many in international soccer see Montagliani as the most viable potential challenger, although a person close to him says he has no intention of seeking FIFA’s presidency in 2027 and instead plans to seek reelection that year to what would have to be his final term as CONCACAF’s president. But he fits the profile of someone best positioned to dethrone the incumbent, ironically by stitching together the type of trans-Atlantic alliance that lifted Infantino to his first victory. “Mexico is not happy. Canada is not happy, and that’s because they’re politically not happy with Trump,” said a senior national-federation official, granted anonymity to candidly discuss dynamics within CONCACAF. “There’s that direct tension.”

BRUSSELS — A bid to revive a European football Super League is unlikely to find a sympathetic audience in Brussels despite the court victory the breakaway contest scored last week. A Spanish appeals court called foul on European football’s organizing body, ruling that UEFA had illegally stifled an attempt by a dozen top clubs from Spain, Italy and England to form their own contest. The EU “will continue to advocate for the strengthening of our sport model, our national leagues and grassroot sport,” Glenn Micallef, commissioner for culture and sport, said in a statement to POLITICO reacting to the judgment.  The Maltese commissioner said the EU executive would continue to work with UEFA and LaLiga — the European and Spanish federations found by the Madrid court to have breached EU competition law — in order to ensure that money is redistributed from the top clubs to amateur leagues. In June, the Spanish competition authority opened an antitrust investigation into UEFA’s conduct, a case which observers — including a former advocate general — think should be taken up by the European Commission. “[The Super League] contradicts the principles of the European Sports Model and collapsed in 2021 because it was a bad idea from the start,” said Micallef, noting that it was rejected by fans, players and governments across Europe at the time. The commissioner’s comment follows the European Parliament’s adoption of a resolution in October that stated the legislative body’s opposition to “breakaway competitions.” Both Real Madrid and A22 Sports Management have said that they will seek damages from UEFA following the court ruling. Both Real Madrid and A22 Sports Management have said that they will seek damages from UEFA following the court ruling. | Sven Hoppe/Getty Images Despite the Super League’s collapse in 2021, its backers have continued to try to organize a breakaway competition.  In response to last Wednesday’s judgment, A22 said that it had held extensive discussions with UEFA officials aimed at creating an open, cross-border football competition, but that the Switzerland-based federation “refused to pursue a compromise.” “UEFA is clearly legally obliged to recognise A22’s right to organize competitions on an equal footing with their own,” the firm said in a statement. UEFA has said that it will carefully review the judgment before deciding on further steps.

Mario Monti is a former prime minister of Italy and EU commissioner. The European Commission sanctioned Google on Sept. 5, for abusing its dominant position in the bloc’s advertising technology market. The sanction had two components: a €2.95-billion fine, as well as the obligation of introducing changes to the company’s business model that will ensure the discontinuation of the abuse. In reaction, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a statement on how “Europe today ‘hit’ another great American company.” Taking to social media, he warned: “We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these taxpaying American companies” — a proceeding that would presumably lead to the imposition of tariffs by the U.S. But, with all due respect, Trump is missing a key point: There is no discrimination here. The Commission sanctions cases of abuse of dominance that take place in the EU market, whether they’re carried out by EU or non-EU companies. More to the point, this is exactly what the U.S. antitrust authorities do with respect to the U.S. market. Incidentally, just yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission in Washington opened an investigation into the advertising practices of Google and Amazon, much along the lines set out by the Commission. We’ve been here before — and with the same players too. Let’s rewind 20 years to when I was Competition commissioner: In 2004, the Commission sanctioned Microsoft after a long investigation involving constructive discussions with Co-founder Bill Gates, then-CEO Steve Ballmer and then-General Counsel Brad Smith, among many others. Eventually, it imposed a fine of almost €500 million and, more importantly, ordered changes to the company’s business model. Interestingly, the complaints that prompted the investigation mainly came from U.S. companies, including the start-ups of the early days of the internet economy. They were complaining that Microsoft, which had — through its merits — legally earned a highly dominant position in operating systems for personal computers, was leveraging its position onto neighboring markets by obstructing other companies in a variety of ways, thus stifling innovation. In fact, I remember one such U.S. start-up — only about three years old when we began our investigation — had a rather intriguing name: Google. And I remember then-CEO Eric Schmidt visiting the Commission to praise our “courage.” The European Commission sanctioned Google on Sept. 5, for abusing its dominant position in the bloc’s advertising technology market. | Beata Zawrzel/Getty Images Incidentally, European corporate leaders, who sometimes urge the Commission to be less rigorous in its enforcement of competition rules, should also keep these past cases in mind — especially if they want a more innovative and competitive European economy, as we all do. Perhaps they should put the issue into a broader perspective and think twice. With its Microsoft decision, the Commission — followed by several other competition authorities across the world — allowed for the emergence of Google and other start-ups to become hugely successful. In fact, it put pressure on Microsoft to change its behavior and embrace a corporate culture building on collaboration rather than monopolization, supporting open-source projects and fostering partnerships with other companies. And many analysts believe it is these changes, stimulated by the past determination of competition authorities, that help explain Microsoft’s success over the last decade, under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella. Against this backdrop, Trump’s view that EU competition policy is driven by discriminatory motivations against U.S. companies is simply unfounded. What’s true is that in any national or supranational context like the EU, institutions such as competition authorities and central banks have been set up in the eminent American tradition — dating back to the late 19th century (with the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890) and the early 20th century (with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913) — precisely with the goal preventing these abuses, whether by companies in the marketplace or by governments abusing future generations via high inflation. Of course, it’s no surprise that leaders with an autocratic vision wouldn’t feel at ease with institutions entrusted by governments and parliaments of the past with preventing power from becoming absolute. But it was the U.S. that set postwar Germany, and later the EU, on this track. When occupying the country after World War II, America imposed the creation of two institutions on the newly born Federal Republic of Germany: First, the Deutsche Bundesbank — an independent central bank modeled on the Federal Reserve System, meant to avoid a repetition of the hyperinflation that contributed to the advent of Nazism. Second, the Bundeskartellamt competition authority, modeled on the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, with the power to prevent the reemergence of cartels and trusts in heavy industry — another factor that had contributed to Hitler’s aggression and World War II. Then, at Germany’s request — and on the basis of the country’s democratic and economic resurgence — these two institutions were transposed to the EU level. So, today we must thank the U.S. not only for its decisive help in saving the continent from Nazism and Fascism and protecting it from Soviet Communism, but also for injecting postwar Europe with such powerful antidotes to the aberrations of the past. Perhaps Trump might forgive us if we aren’t ready to give up this great American legacy.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to impose more tariffs against the European Union after the bloc levied a €2.95 billion fine against Google for violating anti-monopoly laws. “As I have said before, my Administration will NOT allow these discriminatory actions to stand,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. The European Commission announced the penalty against Google Friday for abusing its dominant position in the advertising technology market — a decision the search giant vowed to appeal. The company now has 60 days to propose a remedy to the EU, which has left a forced breakup on the table. Trump and his administration, most notably Vice President JD Vance, have been outspoken in criticizing European tech laws they say disproportionately harm U.S. tech companies and chill free speech. Trump’s comment Friday comes as his Justice Department prepares to go to trial with Google later this month to resolve a similar case involving Google’s online advertising monopoly. A federal judge already ruled Google has an illegal monopoly in that case, and another trial will be held to determine a remedy, which could include breaking up the company. His comment also comes a day after Trump hosted a White House dinner with tech executives, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai and co-founder Sergey Brin, in which the president congratulated the company for avoiding a breakup after a judge on Tuesday found the company had illegally monopolized the online search market. “I’m glad it’s over,” Pichai told Trump during the dinner. “Appreciate that your administration had a constructive dialogue, and we were able to get it to some resolution.” Trump in his Friday post indicated he might order an investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a little-used provision that allows the president to impose trade restrictions if an investigation finds that a country is engaged in a practice that is unjustifiable and burdens or restricts U.S. commerce. “We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity,” Trump wrote of the EU’s fine. “Google must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies,” said European Commission Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera in a statement Friday. The Commission’s multibillion-euro fine falls short of the €4.34 billion fine the EU executive slapped on Google in 2018 over abuse of dominance related to Android mobile devices, but is higher than the €2.42 billion fine the firm faced for favoring its own comparison-shopping service in 2017.

The European Commission today fined Google €2.95 billion for abusing its dominant position in the advertising technology market. The American tech giant is alleged to have distorted the market for online ads by favoring its own services to the detriment of competitors, advertisers and online publishers, the EU executive said in a press release. The search firm’s ownership of various parts of the digital ads ecosystem — including the software that both advertisers and publishers use to buy online ads — creates “inherent conflicts of interest,” according to the Commission. “Google must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies,” said European Commission Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera in a statement. Google now has until early November — or 60 days — to tell the Commission how it intends to resolve that conflict of interest and to remedy the alleged abuse. The Commission said it would not rule out a structural divestiture of Google’s adtech assets — but it “first wishes to hear and assess Google’s proposal.” In 2023, the Commission issued a charge sheet to Google in which it concluded that a mandatory divestment by the internet search behemoth of part of its adtech operations might be the only way to effectively prevent the firm from favoring its own services in the future. The Commission had originally intended to deliver the fine Monday, before Brussels’ trade czar Maroš Šefčovič intervened to halt the decision amid continued tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump. This article is being updated.

BRUSSELS — Ursula von der Leyen is beefing up competition capacity in her Cabinet, as antitrust gets dragged deeper into trade tensions with the United States and the EU continues to strive for a bloc-wide industrial policy. Michele Piergiovanni, an Italian official who advised former competition chief Margrethe Vestager, is set to join the European Commission president’s Cabinet, POLITICO first reported on Wednesday. A Commission spokesperson confirmed the move and said that Piergiovanni will advise the president on competition and economic issues. The move could signal an imminent departure of von der Leyen’s current antitrust and digital adviser, Anthony Whelan. The seasoned Irish official was appointed last year to lead the competition directorate’s state aid department, but never took up the role as he has been jealously guarded by the president’s Cabinet.  Piergiovanni’s appointment also signals the president’s heightened attention to a policy area that has become increasingly political, both externally, in the context of transatlantic trade tensions, and internally, as the bloc looks to revisit rules on mergers and public industry funding in an effort to boost economic growth. Earlier this week, the Commission halted an antitrust decision targeting search giant Google under U.S. pressure in trade talks. The EU executive is also under increasing pressure to bend rules on public industry funding — or state aid — to allow EU countries to funnel cash into their industries. There are also calls to relax merger rules to allow companies to become bigger and compete on the global stage as European champions. Piergiovanni, who joined the Commission in 2011 from a top American law firm in Brussels, knows a thing or two about European champions. In 2018, he was appointed to lead the competition department’s work on the most controversial merger of the decade, the Franco-German attempt to merge Siemens and Alstom to create a continental rail giant, which was ultimately blocked. The decision to deny the deal infuriated France and Germany while becoming the poster child of the competition directorate’s strict enforcement.  A loyal and rigorous official from Italy’s northern coastal region of Liguria, Piergiovanni will be a solid link between the top of the EU executive and the competition directorate, which recently said goodbye to its top official, Frenchman Olivier Guersent. “Don’t scratch the Rolls-Royce,” were Guersent’s parting words to his successor. The Rolls-Royce, is, of course, DG COMP, which the official described as the most prized directorate to work in, but also an area which should remain immune from political interference and corporate pressure. Giovanna Faggionato contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič on Monday made an 11th-hour intervention to stop the European Commission issuing a penalty on American tech giant Google for its search advertising practices, amid continued trade threats from U.S President Donald Trump. Late last week, Google was given a heads up to expect a decision on Monday in the EU’s four-year-old Adtech investigation, two people familiar with the case, granted anonymity to discuss a confidential process, told POLITICO. The case is especially sensitive as it hits at the heart of the company’s business model in placing online ads. But the delivery of the decision was ultimately halted by Šefčovič against the wishes of Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera. MLex first reported the story. The move to hold fire on hitting Google comes amid increasing fears in Europe that Trump is ramping up more pressure on Europe after striking a one-sided trade deal in July. He is now threatening to “impose substantial additional Tariffs” and stop selling tech and chips to countries with digital rules he deems discriminatory to American companies. The EU executive’s antitrust decisions are led by Competition Commissioner Ribera but need to be signed off by the whole College of Commissioners to be formally adopted. It is unusual for a commissioner who is not in the lead of a file to stand in the way, particularly one who is officially lower in the EU executive hierarchy, as Šefčovič is. The Commission’s preliminary view, detailed in a charge sheet sent to Google two years ago, is that the company breached EU antitrust rules by distorting competition in the advertising technology industry. Momentum has grown around a potential fine from the EU since the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) called on a breakup of the search giant earlier this year.  The Commission declined to go into detail when asked about the decision. “The investigation is ongoing,” a spokesperson said during the EU’s daily press briefing on Tuesday, adding: “The investigation is concluded once the decision is adopted.” Ribera echoed this comment on the sidelines of an event at the European Parliament and said that relationships with her peers at the DoJ remained “good.”