EU Commission's blueprint for a Digital Single Market is quite ambitious

The competent EU Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip and the EU Commissioner for Digital Economy, Günther Oettinger, are proceeding in their blueprint for a Digital Single Market quite ambitiously.

By the end of next year they want to present nine legislative proposals. Most of these definitely have the potential to simplify cross-border e-commerce and promote an urgently needed innovation push in the European digital economy.

Still, the main problem is convincing the member states to approve EU-wide regulation and thereby surrender some of their own competences. Every member state will be tempted to promote its own existing rules.

It will be crucial whether the Juncker Commission can build up enough pressure to prevail against the member states’ interests in the lengthy and complex negotiations to come.

Dr. Bert Van Roosebeke, Head of Division for Information Technology, vanroosebeke(at)cep.eu