You're talking about the EU and states alike - right?

You do know that except for arguably Hungary (and even that's slowly being worked on... it's just really hard), all EU members are democracies and the EU itself is a democratic institution?

Or like the United States with their military operations protecting w̶e̶a̶k̶ a̶n̶d̶ o̶p̶p̶r̶e̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ their interests around the world ?

Technically it's true that if you were to equate influence to the ability to protect, that when you lose that influence you also lose the ability to protect.

So far, it's all been speculation, even drawing parallels with Android or Windows doesn't help because it's not similar enough. I would expect a broader ecosystem or additional facets to an existing ecosystem to also cause an expansion of questionable quality and practises, but that applies to everything, not just mobile phones.

You mean the EU/ECJ?

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

— C.S. Lewis

FWIW, my observation of Google's app store policies over the last 8 years or so is that they simply trail behind Apple's policies by a couple of years. Google is constantly expanding their store policies in order to better vet who is distributing apps, restricting the behavior of apps, etc. and they almost always mirror what Apple has already put in place.

I would agree with you that Apple isn't the only entity that can provide that type of vetting process but it also seems clear to me that a vetting process is actually a useful and desirable service.

F-Droid does a better job than either of them for my purposes and it's just like one guy.