Ars has fallen a long way from what they used to be (I say this as a former subscriber).

Expect clickbait articles, shallow tech coverage, rabid commenters (I don't visit the forum but the comments were previously - mostly - of higher quality).

I still follow it because I haven't found a worthy replacement yet.

As for the article, it actually says this was within a routine consultation, ie. EU asked companies what they think and (as you point out) Apple politely responded.

IME, it's still better than the average tech news site—but since the buyout by CondeNast, it's nowhere near what it used to be.