With Ursula von der Leyen due to announce, on Wednesday 11 September, the positions of the 26 future Commissioners-designate in her second team, details of how these portfolios might be allocated are starting to emerge. Although the digital portfolio is not the most coveted - Competitiveness, Defence and Enlargement will be the main priorities of the future Commission - whoever receives the brief will have their work cut out.
Gone is Margrethe Vestager, in charge of the ‘Europe for the digital age’ programme, and Denmark has chosen Dan Jørgensen instead. Finland’s Henna Virkkunen would appear to be the best equipped to succeed her and take on the wider digital and innovation agenda.
Her CV includes extensive experience in the field: a Member of the European Parliament since 2014, she has worked on a number of dossiers relating to technology and cybersecurity, including the Digital Services Act (DSA), and was a member of the PEGA Committee of Inquiry as well as the AIDA Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence.
Among the incumbents, Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market, can pride himself on his proximity to and in-depth knowledge of digital affairs. He is the architect of the DSA and DMA, as well as the regulation on artificial intelligence, and wants to lead a reform of European telecommunications.
The next five years should see a slowdown in the EU’s regulatory activity in the digital sector. But the regulations already in place are entering an implementation phase that will have to be overseen by the next commissioner. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)