BEREC Opinion on Meta’s reference offer published in March 2024 to facilitate WhatsApp interoperability under Article 7 of the Digital Markets Act

Following the entry into application of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), on 6 September 2023, the Commission has designated six undertakings as gatekeepers under the DMA for a number of core platform services. Amongst those, Meta has been designated in relation to, in particular, its number-independent interpersonal communication services (NI-ICS) WhatsApp and Messenger. Meta therefore has been required to provide interoperability with these services pursuant to Article 7 of the DMA.

On 29 January 2024 the EC formally requested BEREC to produce an opinion on Meta’s draft reference offer for WhatsApp interoperability under Article 7 DMA. This opinion was provided to the EC on 15 February 2024 and published on 19 March 2024.

Gatekeepers were required to comply with the DMA obligations on 7 March 2024. On that date, Meta published the reference offer to allow for WhatsApp interoperability.

The current BEREC opinion provides specific comments on Meta’s reference offer for WhatsApp interoperability, following the list of minimum criteria for the reference offer presented in the BEREC report on the interoperability of NI-ICS.