EU Orders Meta to Reopen WhatsApp to Competitors

The European Commission issued an interim order requiring Meta to restore free access for competing artificial intelligence assistants to WhatsApp within five working days, NST reports. The commission said the measure will remain in force while it investigates whether Meta's October 2025 change, which introduced an access fee, "may infringe EU competition rules," NST quotes EU antitrust commissioner Teresa Ribera. 9to5Mac characterises the commission's move as a "rare emergency intervention" that prevents a further competitive disadvantage while the probe continues. NST reports the commission can seek fines of up to 10 percent of turnover if Meta intentionally or negligently breaches the interim order.

Editorial analysis - technical context: Messaging-platform integrations with third-party AI assistants typically rely on explicit APIs, webhook endpoints, or brokered gateway layers that carry data, auth tokens, and message transforms between the platform and external models. Restoring third-party access under the commission's requirement implies reestablishing whatever access path previously existed prior to October 2025, and doing so under conditions judged permissible by EU regulators. Sources describe the dispute as turning on whether Meta's fee and access controls effectively barred competitors; 9to5Mac and NST report the commission judged the fee equivalent to a de facto ban at first sight.

The commission framed the interim measure as protecting a "growing market for general-purpose AI assistants" and preserving space for smaller players, NST reports. 9to5Mac places the Meta action alongside EU pressure on Apple under the Digital Markets Act: 9to5Mac reports that Apple will not ship Siri AI in the EU with iOS 27 after failing to reach an agreement with regulators, quoting Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak on Apple's position. Taken together, the cases show EU regulators using both the DMA and competition tools to force platform access for third-party AI services, per the reporting.

For practitioners: observers will follow whether Meta complies within the five-day window reported by NST, whether the commission seeks fines for noncompliance, and the technical terms under which access is restored (authentication, rate limits, privacy safeguards). Industry stakeholders will also watch whether regulators set substantive constraints that alter how messaging platforms expose data to external models.

Reporting in this summary is drawn from 9to5Mac and NST coverage of the European Commission action dated June 10, 2026.