Digital Single Market

The European Commission will today present a communication outlining its proposals for the Digital Single Market. Commenting on a leaked draft of the proposals Green digital rights spokesperson Jan Philipp Albrecht said:

“The much-heralded Digital Single Market project for Europe looks set to be a bit of a damp squib, with the EU Commission proposing too little, too late to meet the challenges of the digital era. Guaranteeing equal access for everyone to digital markets through neutrality obligations on IT service providers should be a top priority if we want to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe, as well as ensuring the internet serves citizens, but the Commission has missed an opportunity to clearly push for this. It is necessary to ensure that platforms like app stores, search engines or social networks are no longer allowed to discriminate against competitors in the market. The Commission has also failed to push for regulatory security standards for all IT products. It now needs to do its homework while proactively working to ensure the two important legislative proposals already in the pipeline on data protection and the telecoms market are brought to a conclusion."

Green digital economy spokesperson Michel Reimon added:

"This communication is a disappointing bellwether for the Commission's intentions with the upcoming reform of EU copyright law. Despite encouraging earlier statements from Commission digital vice-president Ansip on the need to end geoblocking, these proposals fudge the issue. The proposals on the portability of legally-acquired content do not address the problem at source, as most citizens cannot legally acquire content in the first place due to geoblocking!

"Improving data portability and interoperability would be welcome, but not at the expense of data protection.  In the same vein, the creation of a European Cloud could be a positive development but only if the highest network information security standards are used. The current negotiations on EU legislation on network information security do not offer much encouragement in this regard. In general, this disappointing proposal is a failure for the responsible commissioners Ansip and Oettinger."