President-elect Ursula Von Der Leyen will take office as of 1 December 2019. The Commission will propose a Digital Services Act and continue to cast its eye on tech giants.
Background: In July 2019, following the European elections, Ursula Von Der Leyen was appointed as president-elect of the next European Commission, to replace the outgoing EC led by Jean-Claude Juncker. Since then, she has proceeded to form the new team of commissioners, who received individual approval from the EU Parliament during the previous months.
New powers for Vestager: One of the most relevant aspects for tech and digital industries is the return of Margrethe Vestager. In her outgoing role as competition commissioner, she oversaw several investigations on tech giants (Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft) which resulted in fines or orders to pay taxes for tens of billions of Euros, and in remedies designed to improve competition in the markets concerned. Her new role as Vice President for ‘Europe fit for the Digital Age’ promises more of the same. It is likely that Vestager will oversee many of the next Commission’s legislative proposals related to the Digital Single Market, to reshape the competitive landscape through rules rather than ex-post intervention, which has had limited effect so far.
The Digital Services Act will regulate online platforms: The new Commission has already signalled the intention to propose a Digital Services Act. This will strengthen liability rules for digital platforms, services and products, and cover a broad range of digital activities. It will seek to address issues ranging from hate speech online, to “opaque political advertising”, and would apply to tech giants such as Google and Facebook, as well as ISPs and cloud services. The Act would update the e-Commerce Directive dating back to 2000, and build on the recently revised AVMSD and Copyright Directive, as well as recent proposals to tackle terrorist content online. There is currently little detail as to how the Act will look like, though it is expected that the Commission will propose it in the second half of 2020.
