European Commission reaches preliminary position to

Cresthaven Analytics Intelligence Brief

Headline

European Commission reaches preliminary position to designate Amazon and Microsoft cloud services as gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act

Executive Summary

The European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition announced on June 25, 2026 that Amazon's and Microsoft's cloud services provisionally meet the gatekeeper designation threshold under the Digital Markets Act. Designation would bind both firms to interoperability, data-portability, and non-discrimination obligations across their cloud infrastructure offerings.

Bottom Line

The Commission's preliminary position places Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure inside the Digital Markets Act's gatekeeper framework for the first time, extending binding interoperability, switching-facilitation, and non-discrimination obligations into enterprise cloud infrastructure. Both firms retain the right to contest the preliminary position before a final designation decision issues. Confirmed designation carries compliance obligations materially more extensive than any existing EU cloud-sector regulatory requirement, and the obligations land on the platforms' enterprise customers and ecosystem partners as well as on the designated firms themselves.

Key Regulatory Signals

Gatekeeper Designation Triggers Structural Obligations: A formal designation under the Digital Markets Act imposes obligations on gatekeepers including interoperability requirements, prohibitions on self-preferencing, and data-portability mandates. Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure would be required to comply with these obligations within defined implementation periods following any final designation decision.
Enterprise Cloud Customers Gain Leverage on Switching: Gatekeeper obligations require designated cloud providers to facilitate switching and multi-cloud interoperability. Enterprise customers currently locked into AWS or Azure infrastructure gain a regulatory basis to demand portability of workloads, data, and configurations that does not currently exist at this binding level.
Preliminary Position Opens a Formal Response Window: A preliminary position under the Digital Markets Act process is not a final designation. Amazon and Microsoft retain the right to submit observations before the Commission issues a binding designation decision, meaning the current posture remains contestable.
Compliance Programs at Both Firms Face Structural Redesign: If designation is confirmed, both Amazon and Microsoft must develop and submit compliance reports detailing how their cloud services meet each gatekeeper obligation. The compliance architecture required under the Digital Markets Act is materially more extensive than existing GDPR or NIS2 obligations for cloud providers.
Third-Party Cloud Providers and ISVs Face Competitive Recalibration: Interoperability and non-discrimination obligations on designated gatekeepers alter the competitive dynamics for independent software vendors and smaller cloud providers that currently operate within AWS and Azure ecosystems. Access conditions that were previously set unilaterally by the platform become subject to regulatory floor standards.

Regulatory Delta

- The Digital Markets Act's gatekeeper designation process has until now applied only to consumer-facing platforms. This preliminary position is the first to formally propose cloud infrastructure services for designation under that framework.

- The Commission's action extends the Digital Markets Act's reach from consumer and business software into enterprise infrastructure — a structural departure from prior designation scope.

- The preliminary position follows the Commission's 2024 and 2025 designations of Alphabet, Apple, Meta, Microsoft (for LinkedIn and Windows PC OS), and Amazon (for Amazon Store), and runs alongside active non-compliance proceedings against several designated gatekeepers.

Materiality Classification

HIGH — A Commission preliminary gatekeeper designation under the Digital Markets Act carries binding obligation consequences upon confirmation and represents the first application of that framework to cloud infrastructure services, requiring compliance posture assessment across all firms operating within or dependent on AWS and Azure ecosystems.

Intelligence Outlook

Monitor the European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition for Amazon's and Microsoft's formal observations in response to the preliminary position and for the issuance of a final designation decision.