Germany proposes two new EU digital agencies to upgrade the EU competition policy

A report commissioned by the German government called for the creation of two new digital agencies to complete the upcoming new EU competition policy.

Read the article "Die Digitalisierung gefährdet die freie Marktwirtschaft. Experten wie Achim Wambach raten zum Gegensteuern"

"Digital Market Transformation" and "Digital Market Board"

An agency for “Digital Market Transformation” which would gather economic and technical information across the Member States and support EU bodies. The “Digital Markets Board” would coordinate the EU’s digital policy within the European Commission’s secretariat-general.

According to the document to be published “in competition law, we want to create all the prerequisites to enable the creation of big digital players in Germany and Europe that achieve a competitive size internationally,” and call for the establishment of a “Commission Competition Law 4.0 to develop key points for corresponding reforms.”

The group of german experts, which was presided over by competition seniros Heike Schweitzer and Achim Wambach and by Martin Schallbruch, a digitization strategist, has now presented 22 recommendations wich include frameworks for granting the user access to data and rules for dominant platform

This call follows a range of similar proposals issued by France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. However Germany argued that the rules should only be applicable to companies that are dominant under the current definition of EU competition law. A new regulation would be necessary to force platforms and operators to implement, for instance, data portability and dispute resolution mechanism.

Another example provided by the specialist, if, for instance, Volkswagen and Renault wanted to exchange information on a shared data platform designed for the development of autonomous cars, they could then obtain a comfort letter from DG COMP that would place their cooperation out of the scope of a cartel.

Call for feedback and political trend

These recommendations are in line with the European political trend which is calling for bolstering the European Digital Industry. The future President of the European Commission foresees a Digital Leadership package to cover high-end quantum computing, 5G coverage and future smart connectivity and set-up common data space for the development of AI, by the first semester of 2020. (read the newsletter from 22.08.2019)

Besides, ENISA put out a paper on EU ICT Industrial Policy for stakeholder consultation until end of September 2019, which aims to evaluate the strengths and the weaknesses of the EU Digital Industrial policy

Eurosmart will contribute to this ICT industrial policy analysis - check out ENISA's survey - and call for your feedback (contact pierrejean.verrando@eurosmart.com)