According to a Reuters report published on Thursday, social network Facebook's $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp instant messaging app is likely to receive the unconditional approval of regulators in the European Union
(EU).

As per the report, the EU Commission is expected to give the green signal to Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp soon. The acquisition deal's approval by the EU regulators will give Facebook a dominant position in the instant-messaging arena in the EU region.

Facebook's expected dominance of the low-cost instant messenger market - as a result of the company's WhatsApp acquisition - has prompted telecom operators opposing the deal to put pressure on the regulators.

With the European telecom firms already rallying against the providers of instant-messaging service, arguing that these services are not regulated in the same manner as telecom companies, the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook is expected to further aggravate the problems of telecom firms.

However, noting that the EU regulators will likely approve the Facebook-WhatsApp merger unconditionally, Tobias Caspary - a partner at law firm Fried Frank - said that the deal seemingly does not pose any competition problems as far as the Commission is concerned.

Caspary further added: "Both parties are offering their services for free. It seems unlikely that customers are locked in with respect to instant messaging, and it would be relatively easy to switch to alternative offers, for example, Skype or Line."