Brussels, 06/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - EU Digital Market Commissioner, Andrus Ansip, and EU Digital Economy Commissioner, Günther Oettinger, unveiled a vast reform of the European Union's digital agenda on Wednesday 6 May to enable to EU to return to being a world leader in this domain. A total of 16 initiatives arranged in three pillars will be implemented by the end of 2016 to turn the Commission's ambitions into tangible reforms.
The programme has broad ambitions because it covers highly sensitive areas such as copyright, and leaves nothing to chance. “Our Strategy is an ambitious and necessary programme of initiatives that target areas where the EU can make a real difference. They prepare Europe to reap the benefits of a digital future. They will give people and companies the online freedoms to profit fully from Europe's huge internal market. The initiatives are inter-linked and reinforce each other. They must be delivered quickly to better help to create jobs and growth. The Strategy is our starting point, not the finishing line,” explained Andrus Ansip. “Our economies and societies are going digital. Future prosperity will depend largely on how well we master this transition,” said Günther Oettinger.
The Internet and digital technologies are transforming the world - in every walk of life and in every line of business. Europe must embrace the digital revolution and open up digital opportunities for people and businesses or face being engulfed by other parts of the world. Europe needs to provide individuals and businesses with new prospects by eliminating obstacles online that prevent consumers from taking advantage of goods and services and to provide businesses with online grwoth opprotunities. The strategy is divided into three pillars, each of which includes targeted action to be implemented by the end of next year:
I. Better access for consumers and businesses to digital goods and services across Europe. This pillar is broken down into eight initiatives: 1) rules to make cross-border e-commerce easier. This includes harmonised EU rules on contracts and consumer protection when you buy online: whether it is physical goods like shoes or furniture; or digital content like e-books or apps. Consumers are set to benefit from a wider range of rights and offers, while businesses will more easily sell to other EU countries. The Commission says this will boost confidence to shop and sell across borders; 2) enforcing consumer rules more rapidly and consistently, by reviewing the Regulation on Consumer Protection Cooperation; 3) more efficient and affordable parcel delivery; 4) ending unjustified geo-blocking - a discriminatory practice used for commercial reasons, when online sellers either deny consumers access to a website based on their location, or re-route them to a local store with different prices; 5) identifying potential competition concerns affecting European e-commerce markets. The Commission launched an antitrust competition inquiry on Wednesday 6 May into the e-commerce sector in the European Union (see article on page 10); 6) a modern, more European copyright law: legislative proposals will follow before the end of 2015 to reduce the differences between national copyright regimes and allow for wider online access to works across the EU, including through further harmonisation measures; 7) a review of the Satellite and Cable Directive to assess if its scope needs to be enlarged to broadcasters' online transmissions and to explore how to boost cross-border access to broadcasters' services in Europe; 8) reducing the administrative burden businesses face from different VAT regimes: so that sellers of physical goods to other countries also benefit from single electronic registration and payment; and with a common VAT threshold to help smaller start-ups selling online.
II. Creating the right conditions and a level playing field for digital netowrks and innovative services. The second pillar includs five initiatives: 1) present an ambitious overhaul of EU telecoms rules. This includes more effective spectrum coordination, and common EU-wide criteria for spectrum assignment at national level; creating incentives for investment in high-speed broadband; ensuring a level playing field for all market players, traditional and new; and creating an effective institutional framework; 2) review the audiovisual media framework to make it fit for the 21st century, focusing on the roles of the different market players in the promotion of European works (TV broadcasters, on-demand audiovisual service providers, etc.). It will as well look at how to adapt existing rules (the Audiovisual Media Services Directive) to new business models for content distribution; 3) comprehensively analyse the role of online platforms (search engines, social media, app stores, etc.) in the market. This will cover issues such as the non-transparency of search results and of pricing policies, how they use the information they acquire, relationships between platforms and suppliers and the promotion of their own services to the disadvantage of competitors - to the extent these are not already covered by competition law. It will also look into how to best tackle illegal content on the Internet; 4) reinforce trust and security in digital services, notably concerning the handling of personal data. Building on the new EU data protection rules, due to be adopted by the end of 2015, the Commission will review the e-Privacy Directive; 5) propose a partnership with the industry on cybersecurity in the area of technologies and solutions for online network security.
III. Maximise digital economy's potential for growth. The third pillar intends: 1) to propose a 'European free flow of data initiative' to promote the free movement of data. Sometimes new services are hampered by restrictions on where data is located or on data access - restrictions which often do not have anything to do with protecting personal data. The Commission will also launch a European Cloud initiative covering certification of cloud services, the switching of cloud service providers and a “research cloud”; 2) define priorities for standards and interoperability in areas critical to the Digital Single Market, such as e-health, transport planning or energy (smart metering); 3) support an inclusive digital society where citizens have the right skills to seize the opportunities of the Internet and boost their chances of getting a job. A new e-government action plan will also connect business registers across Europe, with improved roll-out of e-procurement and interoperable e-signatures.
In this proposal, the Commission made progress on certain particularly sensitive political points, such as copyright reform, spectrum radio and US platforms.
Copyright. Commissioner Oettinger repeated that “this will be an essential element in the strategy. We will publish our proposal by the end of the year”. It is important for the new framework to strike the right balance between the right of users to content access and the lowest possible prices and the right of authors and the creative industries to be appropriately remunerated for their work. Those in the creative industries have been very active recently and have significantly increased their calls for the territoriality principle to be maintained and which enables authors to market the rights to use their work in different countries. Ansip explained “we do not want to change the territoriality principle but we must guarantee cross-border access to content and ensure portability but we must avoid territorial exclusivity”.
Spectrum radio. This is still a sensitive issue at the Council, with several member states refusing to cooperate because they believe that spectrum management is a sovereign right. Andrius Ansip said that this is an extremely difficult question but that there could not be a digital single market without extensive cooperation on spectrum use. He said that it was easy to raise the question of sovereignty but that cooperation was indispensable and that he was sure that member states would be able to perfectly understand this imperative. Commissioner Oettinger added that their arguments were good and they were not going to give up but continue to put forward their arguments in this connection.
Platforms: France and Germany openly exerted pressure on the Commission to find a solution and put an end to the action of foreign platforms, mainly those from the US, which avoided national laws in an effort to assert themselves in European territory (see EUROPE 11306). Other member states think differently however. Finally, the Commission decided to open a major investigation into the practices of the Internet giants by the end of 2015. Commissioner Oettinger rather cautiously advised that they were looking into the issue of platforms but that they wanted to see whether imposing limits was necessary or whether they required European rules. He said that they would explore the options during the course of the investigation. He is, nonetheless, sure that these companies were increasingly flouting legal rules and that if the EU had a raft of European rules it would be necessary to respect them. (Isabelle Lamberty)