Good morning. Thank you very much for inviting me. I am very honoured to be visiting the Scottish Parliament. It feels a little bit like I am appearing on television, because I have seen the Parliament so often on television. I am, indeed, a director of DG connect, which is the digital directorate-general of the European Commission. We have about 1,200 staff. I mainly deal with the budget for our huge research programme and internal staff and procedural matters. I am also part of DG connect’s management board, so I am involved in policy decisions, too.
I am not a technical specialist, but I hope to give you a good overview and to answer your questions. I promise to come back to you if I am unable to answer any questions—I will send any answers through our Edinburgh office, if I need to. My objective here today is to confirm the Commission’s commitment to achieving a fully functional European Union digital single market, and to tell you a little bit more about the Commission’s plans for realising it.
Digital technologies and the internet are transforming entire business sectors, with major impacts on the labour market and society at large. Our European strategy for the creation of a digital single market provides the necessary strong and unitary Europe-level action to address the scale of the economic and social changes brought about by digital in general.
Our overall objective is clear: the digital single market must enable the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. Citizens and businesses must be able to access and use online activities under the conditions of fair competition, irrespective of their nationality or their place of residence.
Today, regulatory fragmentation is holding back Europe. In particular, start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the key to sustained recovery and job creation, suffer from regulatory fragmentation. They do not have the resources of larger competitors to deal with up to 28 different regulatory regimes. Furthermore, the lack of a digital single market is putting European players at a disadvantage at a critical time in the development of the digital economy. Now is the time—when the shares in the new data-driven economy, based on the internet of things, are being parcelled out. It is also a critical time for the roll-out of high-speed wireless networks and services, requiring more efficient co-ordination and enforcement at EU level.
We have seen that digital markets punish those who arrive too late. In certain segments—such as internet search, communications, social media and e-commerce platforms—European players are largely absent. We cannot allow the same thing to happen with the infrastructure and services to enable connected cars, smart homes, smart grids, self-manufacturing and so on. We need to realise that, for many issues, the European level offers the right framework. European solutions ensure that the EU is kept on equal footing with other major world economies.
The European Commission adopted its digital single market strategy on 6 May. It is among the top three priorities of the Commission and of President Juncker, and we recognise the urgency to act. We cannot allow it to sit around for the whole of President Juncker’s mandate, because by then the whole regulatory framework and the technical framework will have changed. The strategy consists of three main pillars and 16 concrete policy actions that are mutually reinforcing.
The first part of the DSM is to improve access to online goods and services across Europe. The Commission wants to prevent unjustified geoblocking and to modernise our copyright framework. We also need to adapt our consumer rules to the borderless nature of online trading.
The second part is digital networks and innovative services. We need to overhaul our telecoms regulations and address issues such as combating illegal online content and strengthening cybersecurity. We must also take a look at the increasingly central role that platforms have in the digital economy.
The third pillar is to maximise the growth potential of the digital economy. We would like a strong data-driven economy that takes advantage of emerging technologies and boosts innovation. We also want to ensure that European citizens have the necessary skills to work with and to benefit from the significant advantages that information communications technology solutions bring in their day-to-day life. Our aim is to act swiftly and coherently across institutions to deliver on the digital single market strategy. We want tangible change by 2017. However, we are conscious that we have to take into account the views of all the member states. All the legislative initiatives will undergo rigorous consultation and impact assessment before their adoption by the Commission.
We need the Scottish Government and Scottish citizens to get fully involved and to present their views during the consultation process. We have started to implement the digital single market actions and, as a first step, we will engage with the widest audience of stakeholders through public consultations. We have started to consult the public on the future of the audiovisual media services directive and a satellite and cable directive; we have launched a public consultation on the future of the regulatory framework on telecoms; and we have launched—or are about to launch—public consultations on prohibition of unjustified geoblocking and on online platforms. Topics will include the economic and social impacts of platforms, the liability of online intermediaries, and the sharing economy. The consultations will feed into a rigorous assessment that will allow the Commission to find the best solutions to address the problems that have been identified in the digital single market strategy.
Before the end of 2015, the Commission will produce a legislative proposal on modernisation of the EU’s copyright regime. In 2015, the Commission will launch a comprehensive assessment of the role that is played by online platforms in the European economy and society and, in the first half of 2016, the Commission will produce a legislative proposal on prohibiting unjustified geoblocking. In the course of 2016, the Commission will also make proposals on the review of the telecoms framework and the audiovisual media services directive. All those things will happen after we have read the results of the consultations that are currently open.
That is an overview of the situation. I have a small PowerPoint presentation, which I did not use today, that I will send to the Scotland Office after the meeting and which can be distributed.