Improving EU Institutional Design to Better Supervise Digital Platforms

As it currently stands, an increasing number of EU laws overlap and simultaneously apply to the provision of a specific digital service, but they rely on different institutional frameworks for implementation. However, it is key that these institutional frameworks are coherent and that the authorities in charge of the different EU laws cooperate with each other.

To contribute to such a debate on effective enforcement, which is particularly important today as EU lawmakers are discussing the institutional framework for the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA), CERRE releases the report ‘Improving EU Institutional Design to Better Supervise Digital Platforms’.

Authored by leading academics Giorgio Monti and Alexandre de Streel, this study takes stock of existing institutional models, evaluates each model by studying its effectiveness and consistency, and recommends improvements to the overall system to ensure more enforcement coherence and effectiveness of EU Platform Laws. It also includes several case studies of cross-countries and cross-legal regime cooperation.

Recommendations

The authors draw three main conclusions from their study:

Firstly, Europe needs a close cooperation between the different national authorities when it regulates digital services, which are often offered cross-border. A great example of success here is the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network that took several coordinated actions against cross-borders platforms to enhance the protection of EU consumers. It has proven to be a very successful model demonstrating that a well-coordinated network can produce consistent EU-wide remedies, without the need for a single, supra-national agency.

Secondly, Europe needs better coordination between regulators in charge of different legal regimes, for example the data protection regulator cooperating with competition authority. This has huge potential to improve the quality and consistency of regulatory intervention but different agencies need to learn how to talk to each other and understand better different regulatory cultures. The authors identify the UK’s Digital Regulatory Cooperation Forum (DRCF) as a great example of cross-regime coordination for online regulatory matters, helping to understanding where connections need to be made as a result of overlapping regulation.

“Cooperation and coordination among national regulators is key to successful regulation in the EU. Not only does cooperation help identify best practices and share knowledge, it can also stimulate better targeted and more coherent enforcement” Giorgio Monti.

Finally, centralising enforcement at the EU level could be useful for the largest cross-borders platforms. Such centralisation could take place at the European Commission as proposed in the DMA and DSA, or in a new (to be created) European Platforms Authority. However, this model could only be effective with the strong cooperation and support of national authorities who are closer to the field. Banking Union is a great example of this: the European Central Bank has centralised decision making but enforcement is greatly supported by national authorities to ensure compliance.

“When we look at the future enforcement of the DMA and DSA, it is pragmatic that some  enforcement tasks sit with the European Commission as it will take time and resources to develop a new authority. But, in the long-term, a separate authority would be better to guarantee the independence of the oversight and enforcement” Alexandre de Streel.

Join us on Monday 17 January at 12:30 CET for an open discussion on the effective enforcement and improvement of institutional design, followed by a discussion with representatives from industry, regulatory bodies, and the European Commission.