Last week we informed about the Council's adoption of the first part of the New Deal for Consumers – directive on better enforcement and modernisation of EU consumer protection rules. With the next European Commission soon beginning its mandate, public attention is gradually shifting to the possible new initiatives affecting consumers in the digital market. Political guidelines of the (then-candidate) Ursula von der Leyen, shed light on two major areas: online platforms and artificial intelligence.
In both fields the initiatives are likely to build upon prior developments in the outgoing Commission. To recall, earlier this year the High-Level Expert Group on AI appointed presented Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence. The guidelines consider many issues of relevance to consumers such as human agency, safety, privacy, transparency, fairness and accountability. So far, however, it remains rather unclear how the guidelines will inform further actions at the EU level.
By contrast, we are gradually hearing more and more about possible initiatives on online platforms. In this regard, the Commission has so far followed a “problem-specific approach” as illustrated by the targeted amendments to the consumer acquis, audio-visual media law or copyright law, the adoption of P2B regulation as well as multiple soft law measures on tackling illegal content. The E-Commerce Directive has technically remained unaffected, even though the tendency towards more responsibility of platform operators has been quite clear. According to the more recent reports, the Commission under President von der Leyen is expected to step up these efforts under the banner of “Digital Services Act”. The discussion about its shape are also at an early stage, yet it is not excluded that the new approach will turn out to be still more of essentially the same. According to the recent presentation from the Commission to the Council experts, current discussions appear to be centred on strengthening the cooperation between national regulatory authorities and potentially common rules on tackling different types of illegal content (such as hate speech) at the EU level. Consultations are expected to be launched at the beginning of 2020, potentially leading to more concrete proposals by the end of that year. Stay tuned!
