2. Commodify digital infrastructures to ensure that European organisations have freedom of choice while leveraging innovative services
Interoperability between digital platform services must be fostered (cloud providers, digital intermediaries, etc.). European companies and citizens must be able to use the services that best suit their needs. To do so, they must be free to change services as their requirements evolve, including to choose emerging European ones. If companies want to, they should also be able to segment their needs and use different actors for different services. In this regard, we expect a lot from the Digital Markets Act to reduce locking effects and the gatekeeping power of large platforms: actors with a gatekeeping role will be asked to share data with other players or offer the possibility for new competing platforms to use their key features.
In parallel, the European Union must continue its efforts to reassure European companies on the perceived risks associated with data processing. We welcome the Gaïa-X project, which aspires to develop standards and promote secure interface options for companies to access, share and process data. These standards must ensure the necessary commodification of cloud computing, in order to allow European companies to innovate and create their own digital solutions.
3. Emphasise the importance of scale in the digital sector, and allow European companies to reach the size they need to compete internationally
Scale matters. Digital data-services need scale to be successful; digital companies need to be able to grow organically, without costs and obstacles stemming from national rules. Put simply, European digital actors need the Digital Single Market, and they need it fast.
European companies must also be able to gain scale in an inorganic manner, through means such as mergers. In order to do so, the European Union’s competition policy doctrine, and more generally its regulations, must be updated. For example, in May 2020, the European Court of Justice (General Court) annulled a decision by the European Commission’s competition authority, which in 2016 blocked mobile operators O2 and Three UK from merging. In the following months, the European Commission appealed this decision by the European Court of Justice.
Whilst these issues are predominantly political, they should nevertheless be at the center of Europe’s strategy for the future. We regret that these challenges are not addressed in Europe’s vision for 2030. These tensions between various parts of the European institutions need to be dealt with. Europe has been focusing for too long on consumer prices, in an inward-looking position. Should it be reminded that, whilst it prohibited the merger and appealed the European Court of Justice’s decision, the Commission authorised in 2014 the merger between Facebook and WhatsApp, thus significantly reinforcing Facebook’s market power ever since? Today, the European Union must look outward and build European giants. This means allowing companies to merge and to reach the scale they need to compete internationally.
4. Create a process to identify the sectors that pose important sovereignty questions and that should be prioritised
Whilst the European Commission is pushing forward ambitious projects to invest in strategic technologies such as 5G, microprocessors, quantum computing or artificial intelligence, to date these fail to systematically assess Europe’s sovereignty risks - in the sense of a lost ability to make free choices - with the exception of the 5G cybersecurity toolbox.
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