TL;DR: I believe the EU is very much going to have an opinion on the WebKit restriction Apple is trying to keep in place.

Yesterday, Apple announced that they decided to unpoop their plan to kill PWAs on iOS in Europe:

Why don’t users in the EU have access to Home Screen web apps?

UPDATE: Previously, Apple announced plans to remove the Home Screen web apps capability in the EU as part of our efforts to comply with the DMA. The need to remove the capability was informed by the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps to support alternative browser engines that would require building a new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS.

We have received requests to continue to offer support for Home Screen web apps in iOS, therefore we will continue to offer the existing Home Screen web apps capability in the EU. This support means Home Screen web apps continue to be built directly on WebKit and its security architecture, and align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS.

Developers and users who may have been impacted by the removal of Home Screen web apps in the beta release of iOS in the EU can expect the return of the existing functionality for Home Screen web apps with the availability of iOS 17.4 in early March.
Changes to iOS, Apple

To anyone reading this as "Looks like the EU is okay with PWAs being restricted to Safari/Webkit":

(I've seen a couple of those comments go around on HN and elsewhere)

I don't think so.

Before I continue: The following are my thoughts and I have no idea what the EU is actually thinking.

A plan to comply !== compliance

What Apple has announced yesterday is a(n update to their) plan to comply with the DMA. The EU won't actually do anything until March 7th (the deadline for compliance). The fact that the EU did do something 1 following Apple's plan regarding PWAs just shows how obviously ludicrous those plans were. I believe that the EU recognized the urgency of the situation and acted early - If Apple would have shipped this update, many existing PWAs would have stopped working overnight. These web apps would be forced to jump ship and offer their PWA in the App Store (with no way back?). The damage to the reputation of PWAs would have been done: Apple would've successfully sent a message that you can not rely on the web to reach your customers on iOS 2.

Nowhere does anyone say that the EU is okay with Apple's updated "plan to not kill PWAs on iOS - but only if they run on WebKit".

In fact, the DMA demands the opposite: Apple has to open up iOS to 3rd-party browsers, and Apple can't self-preference Safari/WebKit for any of its features. Those features include, but are not limited to, like, say, the ability to install and run PWAs.

Apple planned to remove PWA support so they would not have to open up the APIs to other browsers. Period.

1 AFAIK, the EU only announced they would start an investigation, which is a long way from actually enforcing anything.

2 You could argue that Apple already sent that message just by planning to kill PWAs.

Excuses, excuses

Apple claimed security and privacy reasons ("What about the children?"), tried to convince us that 3rd-party browsers could leak your data (Funny you would say that, Apple), that sites could gain access to a user’s camera, microphone or location without a user's consent (Whut?). And then Apple claimed that killing PWAs would do little damage because barely anyone uses them (Oh, really?).

To put it mildly, their arguments did not hold merit.

Back where we left off

Anwyay, to circle back to "the EU is okay with PWAs being restricted to Safari/Webkit":

I very much doubt it.

In January, Apple announced their plan to comply, forgot to mention they were going to kill support for PWAs, then did confirm it (only took them 2 weeks), and now they've backed down. We're back where we left off a month ago.

I believe the EU had an opinion on the PWA WebKit restriction back then, and is still very much going to have an opinion on the WebKit restriction Apple is now trying to keep in place.

I don't believe for a minute that the EU thought Apple's PWA WebKit restriction was okay a month ago, and I believe literally nothing has changed since then.

Further reading