New EU competition official to hold line on Big Tech despite Trump pressure

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The new top civil servant in charge of EU competition policy has signalled he will press ahead with probes into Big Tech companies despite political pressure from Donald Trump.

Anthony Whelan, a former aide of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, was appointed on Monday at the helm of the powerful competition directorate, which has opened several cases into US companies such as Google, Meta, Apple and X. The FT was the first to report on his appointment.

Whelan told the FT following the announcement that competition enforcement “needs to be even-handed, fact-based, constrained by whatever is the legal framework of rules that you’re enforcing”.

He said that his work will not be influenced by “how much noise others make about what we do. When there is more noise, you have to be all the more vigilant about the fact that your cases are well grounded and defendable in court if that is where they would end up.”

Whelan’s job was temporarily filled since the departure of Olivier Guersent last summer and had become emblematic for ideological splits about the future of EU competition policy — and the extent to which it can be used to help the bloc’s companies compete with US and Chinese rivals.

The Whelan appointment, given his proximity to von der Leyen, suggests he may back the Commission president in her pursuit of leveraging competition policy to help European companies scale up.

Whelan is an Irish official who is steeped in tech policy. After advising von der Leyen on digital and competition issues, he led the competition directorate’s state aid department.

Whelan said his career path allows him to “defend the core principles of competition policy, but know where your various international partners are coming from”.

EU competition commissioner Teresa Ribera last summer told the FT that her preferred option would be a woman. But on Monday, she “warmly welcomed” the appointment, saying that Whelan “brings deep experience in European policymaking and a strong understanding of how our rules serve citizens, innovation and fair markets”.

Brussels is currently revising its merger guidelines, a policy discussion that has become symbolic for the opposing visions of von der Leyen and Ribera.

While von der Leyen wants to allow more scale to increase the bloc’s competitiveness, Ribera has made clear she does not want competitiveness to be the pretext for allowing market concentration. A Spanish socialist, Ribera instead wants the Commission to focus more on integrating the single market.

Von der Leyen, who hails from the centre-right European People’s Party, and Ribera have had a range of disagreements, including about the war in Gaza, the EU’s moves to roll back its green regulation, the EU’s response to the crisis in Gaza and most recently the war in Iran. Ribera has also been pushing von der Leyen behind closed doors to stand up more to US President Donald Trump.