Brussels Blueprint, Turkish Overreach? The Risks of Copying the EU’s Digital Competition Law

Dr Matthias Bauer, Director, ECIPE

Dyuti Pandya, Analyst, ECIPE

Turkey is set to introduce major digital competition rules that closely resemble the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). While the Turkish version was initially expected to reach Parliament in 2024, it is now likely to be discussed in the remaining half of 2025. The amended legislation, which is meant to ensure competition and contestability, has shifted its focus toward curbing the dominance of major digital platforms, a regulatory copy-paste from the EU that could lead to unintended consequences.

As e-commerce and digital economies have advanced, Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition required updates. Unlike the EU’s approach, which introduced a separate law for digital markets, Turkey’s draft proposal seeks to integrate digital regulation directly into its existing competition framework. The proposal raises concerns about large tech firms hindering competition, the inadequacy of ex-post rules to curb harmful behaviour by non-dominant players, and ecosystems that deepen user dependency and block new entrants.

The language justifying these measures is strikingly aggressive – and ignores key facts. Large, often foreign tech firms have brought vital competition to stagnant markets long dominated by incumbents. They also offer free or low-cost digital tools that help businesses across sectors improve services, reach new customers, and boost productivity. For example, small firms can use Google Business Profiles to enhance visibility, engage customers, and drive growth.

Similarly, tools like Google Ads have levelled the playing field, allowing small businesses to compete alongside larger firms. However, these digital platforms are sometimes misunderstood and wrongly scrutinised under traditional interpretations of antitrust laws. Pricing dynamics in digital markets operate differently from those in conventional markets. Subsidising participation on one side of a digital platform often enhances overall value by attracting more users on the other side. On platforms like Amazon, third-party sellers benefit from access to a vast customer base, with services like Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) handling logistics. Its advertising tools can help sellers increase traffic to their listings and allow them to focus on improving their overall business.

From the outset, the draft law takes a defensive stance, aiming to regulate competition through an ex-ante framework. In trying to pre-empt corporate misconduct, an ex-ante approach adopts a static and overly simplistic view of competition, one that fails to account for the fast-paced, unpredictable nature of digital markets. This rigidity risks burdening firms with prescriptive and proscriptive rules that prevent commercial innovation, ultimately undermining the very competition it claims to protect. In rapidly changing technology sectors, regulating future market behaviour is speculative at best, and sweeping measures like the DMA could end up entrenching the status quo rather than challenging it.

In recent years, Turkey has already intensified its scrutiny of technology platforms. In 2021, the Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) paused the roll out of WhatsApp’s updated data-sharing policy. In 2024, Google was fined nearly USD 15 million over hotel search practices. In 2025, the Turkish Competition Board initiated investigations into major subscription-based platforms such as Amazon and Netflix, citing potential breaches of Turkey’s competition laws.

To reinforce this regulatory trend, the Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) has outlined various competition concerns in its sectoral reviews on e-marketplaces and online advertising, highlighting concerns such as self-preferencing, service prioritisation, portability and interoperability issues, data practices, tying, and a lack of transparency. Overreaching digital regulation is unlikely to foster real competition or economic dynamism. Instead, it risks deterring foreign investment and entrenching the perception of an unpredictable and highly interventionist business environment. The approach may do more to limit innovation than to unleash it.

This is evident in Turkey’s proposal, which mirrors the EU’s still-untested rules but goes further. It bans “self-preferencing” more broadly and sets stricter limits on data use, even where the EU allows it with user consent. Turkey’s enforcement regime is more punitive than the EU’s with fines of up to 10 percent of annual revenue – or 20 percent for repeat offences – and structural remedies triggered after only two breaches, without requiring prior behavioural steps. This reflects a broader interventionist approach that threatens legal certainty, due process, and investor confidence.

It is widely expected that major platforms from the EU, US, China – and successful Turkish firms like Hepsiburada, Sahibinden, and Trendyol – will fall within scope. These companies risk scrutiny not for misconduct, but simply for scaling up. The case against Trendyol, for example, targeted self-preferencing practices common in many global markets. Excessively strict rules could discourage these firms from expanding or investing in innovation. Emerging economies and their economic transformation depends heavily on scale, investment, and high-growth firms. Imposing rigid thresholds or restrictions undermine precisely those conditions. Like in the EU, a large market share in Turkey may reflect a firm's relative success rather than a systemic market failure.

The DMA was crafted to address specific market dynamics within Europe, and its effectiveness beyond the EU remains largely untested. Copying the EU’s DMA risks adding to global legal fragmentation. For Turkey, this could stall the impressive momentum of its digital economy. Istanbul is already home to three unicorns and aims for 100 by 2030. In 2023, Turkey’s 89 techno-parks generated $6.5 billion, despite global economic headwinds. Instead of following the EU’s lead wholesale, Turkey should tailor its approach to local needs. Turkey’s Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK), consumer protection laws, and updated e-commerce rules already govern digital platforms in important ways. The proposed DMA-style law represents a second wave of regulation, one that shifts focus from consumer protection to structural control of digital markets.

This raises the question: is more regulation truly needed, or would better enforcement of current tools suffice? Rather than applying a one-size-fits-all model, Turkey should adopt a case-by-case approach – one that focuses on actual harm and takes into account the broader role of state intervention in the economy.