By Ruxandra Popa, Executive Director, Coalition for Open Digital Ecosystems (CODE)

As the EU and UK move forward with enforcing their ambitious competition frameworks - the DMA and the DMCC Act - a central question remains: are these rules actually lowering the barriers that prevent innovative businesses from competing? 

To find out, CODE commissioned a landmark six-market survey of European manufacturers and developers. The results are a wake-up call for policymakers. While the intent of these regulations is to unlock growth, our data shows a significant translation gap between legislation and the practical reality of the tech industry. 

The Innovation Tax: Rising Costs for European Firms

For many businesses, closed ecosystems are no longer just a technical frustration - they are a growing financial burden:

• 57% of companies report that persistent interoperability barriers have directly increased their development and compliance costs 

This "innovation tax" forces startups and SMEs to divert resources away from building new features and toward navigating artificial barriers. In particular, smaller companies do not have the resources to develop variants of their solutions to meet the artificial requirements imposed by certain gatekeepers to access their closed ecosystems. They must be able to write once and run anywhere. 

The Awareness Deficit

One of the most striking findings is that efforts to address barriers to interoperability have not yet fully delivered visible changes for many businesses:

• 65% of businesses are not even aware that a third-party process exists to help them gain access to necessary operating system functionalities 

• Among those who are aware, 69% do not believe the current processes established by dominant platforms are sufficiently efficient or transparent

• Only 22% of companies expressed interest in exploring how the DMA could help their products work better with other platforms 

This is a critical signal and a blow to contestability. If the smaller players - the very ones the DMA is meant to empower - don't know about the tools available to them, they cannot scale. Greater efforts to raise the awareness of businesses about the rights and the procedures available to them under the DMA are therefore essential, but these must go hand in hand with a rigorous enforcement of interoperability.

A Clear Mandate for Change

Businesses are not asking for more regulation; they are asking for more effective enforcement:

• 66% of companies want regulators to promote common, open industry standards 

• 62% call for stricter enforcement of existing rules

These findings align with the high expectations of consumers. Our previous polling found that 82% of citizens view device interoperability as a top priority. With 91% of consumers wanting their devices to work equally well across brands, the market is sending a clear message: lock-in is a relic of the past.  

Moving to effective and true interoperability

Our 2024 report with Oxera highlighted that interoperability is a growth multiplier for the economy. We have seen early wins, such as CODE member Opera seeing its iOS downloads jump 63% after choice screens were introduced. 

However, as we look toward the 2026 DMA review and the implementation of the UK's DMCC Act, we move towards a model where true and effective openness and interoperability isn't an afterthought, but a standard part of the compliance roadmap. A model built on rigorous standards to ensure that systems remain as safe and secure as they are open. 

Our business polling makes this crystal clear: the areas that can have the biggest impact right now are common standards and stricter enforcement. This is where we should focus efforts. These steps ensure that businesses across Europe are able to compete based on the merits of their products. 

Download the deck to explore the full results