EU fines Google €890 million, risking Washington's ire

On Thursday, the European Union imposed two fines on Google totaling 890 million euros ($1 billion), a move that could escalate tensions with the United States.

The bloc fined the American tech giant 460 million euros for illegally favoring its own services, such as Google Flights for air travel and Google Hotels for accommodations, over competitors in search results.

The European Commission stated that the second fine, amounting to 430 million euros, was imposed because Google did not allow app developers to display free offers to consumers outside its digital store, Google Play.

EU Technology Commissioner Henna Virkkunen said, “After this decision, we want to ensure greater competition and enable other companies to innovate as well.”

A senior EU official noted that Google continues to favor its own services, clarifying that the second fine covers the period between March 2024 and December 2025.

Kent Walker, a Google official, said in a statement, “Legislation should improve products, not make them worse.”

These fines come just days before the first anniversary of the tariff agreement reached between Washington and the European Commission, which helped ease trade tensions.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement that the fine poses a “real threat to transatlantic relations stability.”

He added, “The EU consistently claims it seeks stability and transparency in our trade relations, but this type of action creates uncertainty regarding US exports of goods and services.”

These are the largest cumulative fines imposed on a single company under the competition law known as the Digital Markets Act, after the EU levied penalties of 200 million euros on Meta and 500 million euros on Apple in 2025.

The law entered into force in 2024 and aims to curb what the EU considers abuses by major tech companies, in an effort to ensure fair competition in the digital sector.

The fines against Google had been expected for months as part of an investigation launched in 2024, but Brussels faced accusations of delaying the move out of fear of damaging relations with Washington.

Under the Digital Markets Act, the EU can impose fines of up to 10 percent of a company’s total global revenue for violations.

A second EU official stated that the fines amounted to 0.22 percent of Google’s revenue.

The Commission warned that the fines could increase if Google does not comply within 60 days, threatening it with “periodic penalty payments.”

EU Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera emphasized that “better products should succeed because they are better, not because they are owned by the company that operates the search engine.”

In response, Google criticized Brussels, claiming that the EU forced the company to lower the quality of its products in the bloc.

Kent Walker, head of global affairs at Google, said the company is being forced to “remove instant search features loved by Europeans, such as instant pricing and direct booking capabilities for hotels, flights, and restaurants, and dismantle security protections in the Google Play store.”

This is not the first time the EU has fined Google. Between 2017 and 2019, the bloc imposed fines on the company totaling 8.2 billion euros.

Brussels imposed a fine of 2.95 billion euros in a separate case under different antitrust rules in September last year, after which Trump threatened to retaliate against the European Union.

Nevertheless, the EU appeared on Thursday unconcerned about any potential retaliatory response from the United States.

Ribera told journalists that it was the EU’s duty “to ensure full application and respect for the regulations adopted by our sovereign institutions.”

She noted that there were similar cases in the United States and that American authorities were “dealing with very similar approaches.”

The EU and the United States agreed this year to address disputes related to the bloc’s digital rules through talks that have not yet begun.

Around 25 US lawmakers from the Republican Party, to which Trump belongs, urged the president on Tuesday to use tools against the EU’s “discriminatory” digital rules, such as trade investigations that could lead to higher tariffs.