On 10 May 2017, the European Commission published the mid-term review of its Digital Single Market Strategy.
The Digital Single Market is Juncker Commission’s top priority. A fully functional Digital Single Market could contribute to €415 billion per year to the European economy and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
In its mid-term review the Commission has identified three main areas where further EU action is needed:
1. To develop the European Data Economy to its full potential.
2. To protect Europe’s assets by tackling cybersecurity challenges
3. To promote online platforms as responsible players of a fair internet ecosystem
In addition, the Commission addresses the need for further investment in digital infrastructure and technologies in areas where investment needs to go far beyond the capacity of single Member States, such as high-performance computing.
The Commission is preparing a legislative initiative on the cross-border free flow of non-personal data (autumn 2017), and an initiative on accessibility and reuse of public and publicly funded data (spring 2018). In cybersecurity, by September 2017, the Commission will review the EU cybersecurity strategy and the mandate of the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA). In the area of online platforms, by the end of 2017, the Commission will prepare an initiative to address unfair contractual clauses and trading practices identified in platform-to-business relationships and has also taken recent competition enforcement decisions related to this.
Further information can be found here.
