20/07/2018 (Agence Europe) – Back from their visit to Silicon Valley in mid July, S&D group MEPs Josef Weidenholzer, Maria Grapini and Tiemo Wölken took stock of the "open and critical discussions" they had with Uber, Mozilla, Facebook, Google, Apple, SAP and Wikipedia. "We welcome the digital companies' recognition of the key role of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It seems clear that Silicon Valley is embracing the EU's leadership on this essential topic for anyone who uses the internet", the three MEPs said on Friday 20 July. During their meetings with these US companies, they addressed several topical issues such as fake news, copyright and even justifying the need for taxation of the digital sector. The MEPs furthermore underlined the urgent need for an EU presence in Silicon Valley, under the aegis of the European External Action Service. (MF)