ECIPE Webinar: What About Us? Consumer Response to the Digital Markets Act

The EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) was introduced with the promise of empowering consumers, enhancing privacy, and making digital markets more contestable. Two years after its application, this promise remains largely unfulfilled – especially in Central and Eastern Europe.

A new EPPP–ECIPE study, based on survey responses from 3,500 consumers across seven CEE countries, finds that most users have seen little tangible benefit from the DMA. Consumers continue to rely on the platforms they use, appreciating their reliability, functionality, and convenience.

In contrast, DMA-driven regulatory changes have not produced meaningful improvements in affordability, privacy, or choice. Instead of reshaping consumer behaviour, the regulation has largely imposed additional layers of friction without clear gains. Usage patterns remain concentrated around a few trusted providers, reflecting consumer preference rather than regulatory intent. Contestability, in short, exists on paper – not in practice.

This ECIPE webinar will bring together policy analysts, consumer experts, and researchers to discuss what these findings mean for the future of EU digital regulation. The discussion will explore why regulatory goals and consumer realities diverge – and how the DMA could be recalibrated to better serve Europe’s digital citizens.

Key Questions to Be Addressed:
1. How do consumers in Central and Eastern Europe perceive the DMA’s impact on their digital lives?
2. Why have expected benefits such as affordability, privacy, and greater choice failed to materialise?
3. What explains the persistent dominance of major platforms despite regulatory intervention?
4. Should the EU reform or repeal certain DMA provisions to better reflect real-world consumer needs?
5. How can consumer perspectives from CEE inform the EU’s broader digital policy agenda?