Aligning European response and regulations in the digital age

Second of a three-part series on policy recommendations for the digital agenda

Europe's strengths lie in the diversity of its players and solutions and its outstanding industrial skills. Standards that make too little provision for these strengths and that make it more difficult to apply production expertise in the form of embedded software, for example, would undermine the competitive strength of European industrial companies and threaten the future prospects of the entire economic area. The interests of European industry must therefore be spelled out clearly, and regulations that have a bearing on competition must be formulated in such a way that the opportunities arising from the digital transformation can be exploited.

Europe's political arena should support this process. The National Platform for Electromobility in Germany is one example of how umbrella organizations, research institutes, companies and unions could bundle their interests. It would thus be welcomed if the EU Commission for the Digital Economy and Society were to set up a European alliance for digital transformation. For example, companies and governments could define a coordinated, joint approach to dealing with the American Industrial Internet Consortium. European interests will only be protected in the long run if Europe presents a unified response to America's current dominance.

Implementing a balanced regulatory framework. Aside from general standards, the regulatory framework too must be aligned with the digital age throughout Europe.

First, a harmonized, balanced and genuinely pan-European single digital market is needed in order to overcome current fragmentation. Such a market could slash costs and realize synergies through improved access to information, lower transaction costs, dematerialized consumption, a smaller environmental footprint and superior business and administrative models. Huge gains in efficiency could, for example, be realized by consolidating the telecommunications market. By way of comparison, Europe has 55 separate mobile networks, while the US has just five.

Second, the EU's future legal framework must guarantee technology neutrality and support the use of the most efficient technologies. One aspect of this is to provide harmonized mobile broadband spectrums in line with European demand. To place investment on a secure footing, stable rules governing the use of frequencies must be established throughout Europe. It is also important to give due account to the peculiarities of internet companies in market analyses and competition procedures. The aim must be to give a greater weighting to dynamic competitive effects (innovation).

Third, data protection for the EU has to be harmonized. The current European Data Protection Directive dates back to 1995 and is in need of reform. It must be brought into line with conditions in the digital world, quite apart from the issue of considerable differences in national data protection laws. Any provider who sells cloud computing services throughout Europe, for example, has to know and comply with all these different regulations. Instead, a new EU-wide data protection law is needed that should also apply to global players that operate in the single European market. It is therefore important to ratify the General Data Protection Regulation as quickly as possible. This legal framework must then also ensure that law enforcement no longer runs aground in the way it does today due to the lack of clearly defined competencies. The protection afforded to sensitive data must be aligned with different risks, albeit without causing innovation to grind to a standstill. Otherwise, the opportunities afforded by big data will be wasted.

Fourth, laws that are of relevance to the digital transformation must be reviewed. The majority of all current laws and standards were drafted at a time when many digital technology applications were still inconceivable. That explains why highly automated driving, for example, is incompatible with prevailing laws. The legislator must keep up with technological progress and review all valid laws to determine whether they are suitable for the digital transformation.

Fifth, antitrust laws must have a global orientation. The market for IT and electronic communications is global, so network effects play a crucial role. Other regions of the world are much more given to ex-post regulation than Europe is. In those regions, global IT and internet firms emerge that are not regulated until such time as they have reached a critical mass. Yet it is virtually impossible to build this kind of dominant market position from a European base. Although native European companies play in the same global market, they are bound by national antitrust laws. Thus, it is very difficult to achieve genuine economies of scale if large platforms are prohibited ex ante, instead of being reined in ex post where appropriate. On this score, the EU is vulnerable to players from other regions – witness the example of US video-on-demand provider Netflix in its competitive battle with Germany's TV channels. The latter were recently banned from creating their own platforms – the most recent of which was Germany's Gold, a streaming portal planned by public broadcasters ARD and ZDF – due to antitrust concerns.

Sixth, setting up a strict procurement law is mandatory. When security-related public contracts are awarded, all providers should be obliged to declare in advance that they are not bound by law or contract to disclose confidential data to third parties (in a "no spy" clause). Just how important this criterion should be to public procurement processes is evident not only from the recent NSA affair, but from as far back as the Patriot Act in 2001.

Seventh, creating a secure space for data transmission is a must. Telephone and internet traffic within the Schengen area should not leave this area. A secure space for routing could curb the third-party surveillance of communications and strengthen Europe as a location for data. As things stand, it is almost impossible for telecommunications players in Europe to know what route their e-mails and data packets take as they circumnavigate the globe, nor whether transit countries mirror or store their communications.

Eighth, the service quality in networks has to be guaranteed. Industry 4.0, cloud services, innovations in the internet of things and in machine-to-machine (M2M) communications are not feasible without fast and secure data networks. Critical applications in plant and machinery need a guarantee of high-quality network connections at all times. Accordingly, it is vital to be able to continue offering a high quality of service. Net neutrality should be regulated at the European level and defined in such a way that network operators have adequate freedom and incentives, and that innovation is not hindered. The competitive opportunities for connected manufacturing and products in the future are huge. Europe must take advantage of them.


Stay tuned for one more post on policy recommendations for the digital agenda.


To learn more about the digital transformation of industry, click here.