I‘m not sure if I buy the whole „Apple wants to put pressure on the EU“ narrative, even though it sure feels this way- but I can‘t imagine they would willingly loose so many customers just to hurt the EU somehow.. I think it Probably has something to do with the EU potentially MAYBE in the future wanting to force apple to open up their own systems to third parties, which would destroy the data privacy features of apple intelligence or something
This is exactly what the DMA does. It's an anti-closed system regulation and anti-being-in-control.
If Apple provides Apple Intelligence, EU might force Apple to open iOS to third-party replacements for Apple Intelligence or that third-parties may integrate tightly into Apple Intelligence in a particular way. Apple doesn't want that.