Whitepaper: EU Digital Single Market Strategy

In May 2015, the European Commission released a Digital Single Market (DSM) strategy as a central priority of its agenda at the beginning of its four-year term. The strategy’s objective is to create an open, interconnected and digital single market and to maximize the positive impact of the digital transformation on European society and on business activity in the EU. To this end, the Commission proposed a wide range of measures in order to create a stable legal environment, stimulate innovation, tackle market fragmentation and allow all players to tap into the new market dynamics under fair conditions.

Summary State of play

Summary State of play concerning certain key initiatives The time frame to complete the DSM is tight, as the Commission‘s current term ends next year. In addition, the elections to the European Parliament will take place in May 2019. This explains the increased rate at which the EU legislators, thus far sticking to the 2018 timetable, have been pushing ahead with the remaining initiatives. There have already been several achievements as the negotiators wrapped up talks on a review of the AVMSD and the Regulation on the free flow of data. Other negotiations hit a snag, as happened in the case of the proposed reform of the copyright rules or the ePrivacy Regulation. Pillar 1 - Access Pillar 2 - Environment Pillar 3 – Economy and Society Modern digital contract rules Improved consumer protection cooperation Ban on unjustified geo-blocking Modern EU copyright rules Update of the AVMSD ePrivacy Regulation Countering illegal content online European Cloud Initiative Free flow of data Modernize VAT rules for e-commerce Green: legislation officially adopted; Orange: political agreement reached; Red: negotiations ongoing 12

The DSM strategy is only a first step in the right direction. Dr Torsten Kraul, LL.M. 13