Interplays and Overlaps in EU Tech Regulation

During the previous European Commission term (2019-2024), close to ten texts regulating the digital and tech sector were adopted at the EU level. This ‘Digital Rulebook’, which covers a wide range of areas – from platform and content regulation to artificial intelligence, the data economy and data governance, and cybersecurity and digital resilience – is lacking one key element: overall coherence. As a result, the current European Commission plans to address overlaps in these rules, with the objective of simplifying compliance, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. As regulatory overlaps are often used as an excuse by big tech companies not to comply, this simplification effort is being closely watched by our experts. While making implementation and enforcement easier is a legitimate goal, simplification shouldn’t necessarily mean deregulation. To contribute to the public debate on those issues, our experts are focusing on the following research questions:

• What are the overlaps and contradictions between the DSA and other texts regulating the digital public sphere (i.e., EMFA, GDPR, AVMS Directive, e-Commerce Directive, AI Act, consumer and competition law)?

• What do these different pieces of legislation demand of regulatory authorities (centralised oversight at EU level vs. decentralised implementation at national level)?

• How can the EU move towards greater harmonisation and better enforcement?

• What policy gaps remain to be addressed, and how can this be done in the most efficient way?