The new regulatory world in the area of digitalization An overview of current EU legislative projects

The new regulatory world in the field of digitalizationAn overview of current EU legislative projectsAt the beginning of 2020, the European Commission published its "European Data Strategy" (COM(2020) 66 final). The aim is for the European Union to become a role model for a society that is able to make better decisions in the economy and in the public sector thanks to data.

Data strategy of the EU

The EU Commission has recognized this:

"If the EU wants to take a leading role in the data economy, it must act now to address in a coordinated way the multiple issues ranging from connectivity, data processing and storage to computing power and cybersecurity. It will also need to improve its governance structures for handling data and expand its pools of high-quality data available for use and re-use."

The EU Commission states succinctly:

"Data is the lifeline of economic development".

New Legislative Framework

Independently of the data strategy, the European Union adopted the so-called "New Legislative Framework" (NLF) for product regulation and conformity assessment back in 2008. Based on this, numerous European directives and regulations and, in turn, numerous national standards have been adapted or are currently being adapted or newly created.

In particular, the New Legislative Framework takes a risk-based approach to regulation. This is reflected, for example, in the subdivision of artificial intelligence into "prohibited AI", "high-risk AI" and "simple AI" in accordance with the draft EU AI Regulation.

Legislative projects in the area of digitalization

As part of these two requirements (data strategy and New Legislative Framework), numerous laws are currently being amended or newly created. An overview of some currently important projects relating to digitalization is provided below:

Please note that the above legislative proposals are mainly (albeit "final") drafts. This means that most of them are not yet applicable law and changes may still be made in the course of the legislative process.

Date: 3. Nov 2022