If you are about to sign a three-year AWS or Azure commitment covering EU workloads, keep the term short, keep the AI spend unbundled and get the exit price in writing. Brussels is about to give you new switching rights mid-term. Bloomberg reported on October 2 that the European Commission plans to designate AWS and Azure as Digital Markets Act gatekeepers in November, in a draft decision whose timing could slip, with six months to comply, per Parameter's account. That puts the duties in force around mid-2027, a few months after the EU Data Act bans cloud switching charges. A commit signed this quarter runs through both dates, and the extra discount for a longer term partly pays you to give up switching leverage the law is about to restore.
What Brussels Is About to Decide
The Commission is expected to confirm that AWS and Azure are gatekeepers even though neither meets the DMA's numeric thresholds. It opened two market investigations on November 18, 2025 to test whether the two services act as "important gateways between businesses and consumers, despite not meeting the DMA gatekeeper thresholds for size, user number and market position." The practices it named were obstacles to interoperability, limited or conditioned data access, tying and bundling, and potentially imbalanced contract terms.
On June 25, 2026 it reached a preliminary position that both should fall under the Act, calling them the largest and second-largest cloud services in the EU. "We take the preliminary view that Amazon's and Microsoft's respective cloud services, AWS and Azure, should fall under the DMA," said Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera.
A DMA gatekeeper is a company the Commission designates as an important gateway between businesses and their customers. Once a service is listed in a designation decision, Article 3(10) gives the company six months to comply with the obligations in Articles 5, 6 and 7. Non-compliance can cost up to 10% of global annual turnover.
The timing is set by law. Article 17 says the Commission "shall endeavour to conclude its market investigation within 12 months," which from a November 18, 2025 start lands in mid-November 2026. Nothing is final yet. The Commission told reporters that "the assessments are ongoing and no final decision has been taken," per Parameter. But the preliminary view, the statutory deadline and the Bloomberg report all point the same way.
Why Your AI Spend Is the Real Target
The Commission tied cloud lock-in directly to AI. In the June findings it said AI tools and partnerships "have become a decisive factor in cloud procurement," according to webhosting.today's report, and LexisNexis summarised its concerns as "lock-in, switching costs and AI ecosystems." Henna Virkkunen called cloud "a prerequisite for AI" in the Commission's announcement.
Your commit is where that concern lands. Model spend is now the fastest way to burn down a committed-spend agreement, and the commit's eligibility rules decide which models are cheapest for you to use.
On Azure, Microsoft's documentation says Azure services as defined in its Product Terms "inherently contribute" toward a Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), and that 100% of the pretax price of eligible Marketplace offers counts too. The same page says the benefit "only applies to licenses that are exclusively used in Azure." Model spend you route through Microsoft Foundry retires the commit, and a model you buy from anyone outside Azure does nothing for it.
On AWS the answer is less clear and depends on your term sheet. FinOps firm CloudYali reads AWS's eligibility list as making Amazon Bedrock eligible for the Enterprise Discount Program rate only for Amazon's own Nova and Titan models, with Anthropic token fees billed as third-party Marketplace revenue that does not get the EDP discount (CloudYali). That is one firm's reading of contracts that are negotiated deal by deal, so put the question to your own account team.
Either way, the structure is the "tying and bundling" the Commission named in November. A discount that only burns down on first-party models is a reason to keep using them after a better or cheaper model shows up elsewhere. We covered the operational side of this in how long Bedrock and Azure keep a model after the lab retires it.
What the Rules Will and Won't Change
Most of the cloud-specific detail will not exist until around mid-2027. The DMA's Article 6 was written for app stores, operating systems and search. Article 6(5) bans self-preferencing "in ranking and related indexing and crawling," and Article 6(7) requires interoperability with features "accessed or controlled via the operating system or virtual assistant." Neither maps cleanly onto infrastructure.
Article 6(13) fits better. It says a gatekeeper "shall not have general conditions for terminating the provision of a core platform service that are disproportionate" and must ensure termination "can be exercised without undue difficulty," which is language your procurement team can put in front of an account manager.
The Commission is also running a third investigation into whether the existing obligations address cloud-specific practices, which Bratby Law notes "could update the cloud obligations by delegated act." The International Center for Law & Economics puts that investigation's due date around May 2027. So the cloud-specific rulebook and the compliance deadline may arrive within weeks of each other.
The Data Act is already moving first. Its cloud switching chapter has applied since September 12, 2025. Article 25 caps the notice period to start switching at two months, followed by a transitional period of up to 30 calendar days. Article 29 says that from January 12, 2027 providers "shall not impose any switching charges on the customer."
Greenberg Traurig notes the Data Act still allows "proportionate early termination penalties or fees," and that it is unclear whether the switching rules reach contracts signed before September 12, 2025 (GT). So the law lowers the cost of leaving without obviously cancelling a promise to spend a fixed amount over three years, and the penalty clause you sign today sets how much the new rights are worth to you.
The Case Against Waiting
The strongest argument for signing a long commit anyway is that the designation may change little. The International Center for Law & Economics argues that AWS's share fell from about 32% in 2021 to about 28% in early 2026, that all three large providers dropped egress fees in 2024, and that most surveyed enterprises already run workloads on both AWS and Azure. AWS told reporters that European customers "currently enjoy unprecedented selection among cloud computing options," per Parameter.
Part of that is true today. Since March 2024, AWS has offered free data transfer out to customers leaving for another provider, with approval from support and 60 days to finish the move, and without requiring them to close the account (The Register).
There is also a precedent for regulators blinking. The UK Competition and Markets Authority concluded on July 31, 2025 that AWS and Microsoft should be considered for strategic market status. In March 2026 it accepted voluntary commitments instead, which critics called "overly general and difficult to enforce" (Tech Policy Press).
Weigh the two outcomes. If Brussels softens, a shorter commit costs you some discount for a year. If it doesn't, a three-year commit with a heavy shortfall penalty has you paying, for the full term, for leverage the law was about to give you.
What to Do Before You Sign
This Week:
- Pull every AWS EDP or Private Pricing Agreement and every Azure MACC that covers an EU entity. Put the end date, annual commit, shortfall terms and early termination clause in one sheet, and flag anything that runs past July 2027.
- Send your AWS and Microsoft account teams one written question each: which AI services retire the commit, at what rate, and does that include third-party models on Bedrock or Foundry and Marketplace purchases.
This Month:
- Ask for a 12- to 18-month term on any renewal, or a re-opener clause triggered by the final DMA designation decision and by any delegated act that updates cloud obligations. A smaller discount on a shorter term is the cheaper option here.
- Refuse AI credits that burn down only on first-party models as part of the headline discount. If the credit is real, ask for it as a flat discount you can spend on any model the platform hosts.
- Write the Data Act exit into the order form: a two-month notice period, the 30-day transition, and an early termination fee formula with a stated cap. If "proportionate" is left undefined, the provider defines it.
Before Renewal:
- Price one real exit. Pick a mid-sized workload, apply for AWS's free migration transfer or ask Microsoft for its equivalent in writing, and cost the move including re-platforming, so you walk into the renewal with your own exit price.
The Bottom Line
The last time Brussels legislated cloud switching, prices moved before the law did. AWS waived egress for departing customers in March 2024, a move The Register said followed the direction set by the Data Act, 18 months before the Act's switching rules applied. Expect the same pattern now: concessions on terms and AI credits will show up in renewals before the designation takes effect, and only for customers who ask.
The DMA's earlier move on AI was the Google Android assistant ruling; this designation lands on a contract your CFO signs. Find the shortfall clause in your current commit before your account team brings the renewal deck.
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