How Europe manages the sharing economy

for a platform to “get the discussion going in Brussels”
on the sharing economy.
The forum chose the name European Collaborative
Economy Forum instead of European Sharing
Economy Forum, because the European Commission
has adopted that phrase.
“We decided that, since our audience was Brussels,
Brussels was using,” said Delany, accepting that
sharing economy was “more common parlance”.
“We started off with the European Collaborative
Economy Forum [in 2015] as a place for discussion
between members, with policymakers, to discuss the
current and future policy landscape. So no lobbying,
no position papers, no agreed views, it was actually
all about, well, how do we amongst us consider the
collaborative economy,” he said.
Uber and Airbnb are among its founding members,
but the association also has in its ranks companies
space (Seats2Meet), and car-sharing (SnappCar).
Photo: European Commission
NO WILD WEST GUYS
Delany also saw a task in “educating” policymakers,
because there were “some common misconceptions”
about the collaborative economy.
This year, the association will move into “a little bit
more of an advocacy role”, said Delany.
He added that the forum has been speaking to
members of the European Parliament about the
collaborative economy, drafted by centre-left Italian
for an interview.
“These guys are accused of being in the Wild
thing, but the reality is that the general construct of
business regulation applies to sharing or collaborative
economy companies as much as it does to anybody
else,” Delany said.
Photo: European Commission
30 — SHARING ECONOMY & EUROPE MAY 2017