EU BYTES
Directive and build on judicial community acquis. Nonetheless, I already see the lobbying battle in Brussels with one side looking to keep it excluded and the other looking to include it under the new regulation’s scope. This has and probably will have mostly to do though with the discussion on the subsidiarity principle, whereby each EU Member State decides on how to regulate its gambling markets.
So, what are we looking at in terms of the timeline?
In June 2020 the European Commission launched a public consultation which ended on 8 September. Public consultations are, well, public, so the focus was on individuals, businesses, online platforms, academics and civil society. The European Parliament is currently finalising reports to this end with a view of the Commission providing legislative proposals by the end of this year.
What is the essence of the initiative?
The essence is essentially two-fold. One is to provide “clear rules framing the responsibilities of digital services to address the risks faced by their users and to protect their rights. The legal obligations would ensure a modern system of cooperation for the supervision of platforms and guarantee effective enforcement.” The second is to “propose ex ante rules
covering large online platforms acting as gatekeepers, which now set the rules of the game for their users and their competitors. The initiative should ensure that those platforms behave fairly and can be challenged by new entrants and existing competitors, so that consumers have the widest choice and the Single Market remains competitive and open to
innovations.” I don’t think I need to tell you which companies are essentially targeted in the latter.
So, what approach to take?
In any case, I hope the intentions really will create a sustainable and balanced approach to digital services, especially in light of my parallel role as Secretary General of the European Enterprise Alliance (EEA), an association representing SME interests from Central and Eastern Europe. This is why at the beginning of October, we (the EEA) together with the Polish Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers and SMEConnect, and hosted by the Rapporteur in the European Parliament of the key report pertaining to the Digital Services Act, MEP Alex Agius Saliba, co-organised a webinar on the relevance to SMEs. Happy to have been a speaker on the panel, I would like to reflect something with you; essentially my key point during the event: There is a need for a pragmatic approach to understanding and approaching the digital
eco-system which contains all sized companies. There is a strong level of interdependence between all those that are large, medium, small, and micro. For example, some SMEs are part of digital supply chains or provide innovative technology. Others use platforms to sell their products in markets previously not possible. Very many of these are also SME-sized platforms. Therefore, an emotional approach of purely seeing this eco-system as one benefiting at the cost of the other should not be the general approach. And, within all this, it is paramount that the consumer remains the focus. What do you think; both from your interest as a
business and your power as a consumer? And, both from the gambling and non-gambling side of things as one should not forget that gambling is quite different from other services due to the essential elements of consumer protection and public order.
Greetings from Brussels and #StaySafeStayTuned
OCTOBER 2020 29
goinyk/Adobe Stock
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78
