The digital single market: mid-term review

Key messages

• Digital is borderless by nature. The actions of the Strategy need a renewed emphasis from all EU institutions to urgently deliver a competitive and globally relevant digital single market.
• The full economic and societal benefits of digital need to be fully realised. A greater focus on Better Regulation principles is required to ensure the actions of the Strategy remain innovation and investment friendly so that its full benefits can be reaped.
• Not every technological advancement needs to be followed by legislation. Europe should rebalance its risk-averse approach to digital policy and foster the economic and societal benefits new technologies offer. Legislation is only required where real market failures exist.
• Rules must be robust to remain relevant in the rapidly changing digital landscape. Legislation should remain technology neutral, seek to create a level playing field and avoid steering technological development.
• Digital is a truly cross cutting topic that impacts all policy areas. When legislation is required it should remain 'digital by default' and take its digital impact into account regardless of its policy area.

Key areas

• Urgent legislative action is required to enable free cross border movement of data and to eliminate national localisation requirements. This market failure should be fixed in order to foster an open, competitive and innovative digital single market.
• Access, transfer and re-use of data between businesses should not be hindered through further Regulation. These emerging data issues need to be determined case by case and are served best through existing contractual practices. Legislating in this area would have a chilling effect on the data economy.
• Digital transformation offers Europe the opportunity to lead the digital revolution to turn heritage of the past into a game-changer for the future. No matter the size, sector or location, all businesses supported to digitally transform. Governance should be coordinated at all levels to support this.
• The recently proposed ePrivacy Regulation will duplicate and contradict the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and will not enhance trust and security in electronic communications. It will set disproportionate and overburdening rules on a wide range of service providers to the detriment of Europe’s innovative capacity.
• Improving cybersecurity will foster trust within our digital economy. This needs to remain internationally relevant. Taking isolated approaches will limit our security capabilities. Schemes in support of cybersecurity should cover a wide number of products and services and be adaptable to developing security risks.
• The new skills agenda for Europe should take a cross sectoral approach and ensure employers play a strong role in digital skills and jobs coalitions to link EU digital skills and STEM skills better.