Ambition 3: Ensure a safe, positive, and fair Online Platform Ecosystem
With over half of the EU population using large digital platforms, ensuring a fair and safe online environment is crucial. This ambition outlines priorities for implementing and evaluating recent legislation aimed at improving competition and safeguarding consumers and society.
Protect market contestability by preserving multi-homing and improving merger control
To ensure healthy competition, new entrants must be able to challenge established platforms. Multi-homing, where users can utilise multiple platforms, is key to enabling this. Policies should limit exclusivity requirements from dominant platforms. Strengthening merger control is also essential to prevent large platforms from acquiring emerging competitors, thus maintaining market contestability and innovation.
Enhance competition on dominant platforms through open standards for APIs
To promote fairness and transparency, third parties should have access to dominant platforms’ hardware and software features. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) requires gatekeepers to allow this through standardised Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Open standards will reduce costs and prevent discriminatory practices, fostering competition and innovation.
Empower users in digital ecosystems
Digital platforms often manipulate information to benefit themselves, reducing transparency for users. It is essential to improve transparency in how platforms operate and ensure that users can easily switch between services. Digital literacy initiatives are also critical to help EU citizens make informed choices and navigate digital markets safely.
Build coherence in preventing harm from online services
Recent EU regulations like the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), the Terrorist Content Online Regulation (TERREG), and the Digital Services Act (DSA) address harm from online services. However, there are overlaps in their scopes. CERRE recommends improving coherence between these instruments to enhance consumer protection and market fairness. Clear guidance from the European Commission on how these regulations interrelate would aid in implementation.
Establish robust evaluation systems for the Digital Services Act
Assessing the implementation of the DSA involves more than checking individual compliance. CERRE calls for a systemic evaluation approach, particularly for very large platforms, which must conduct risk assessments. The results of these assessments should be analysed collectively to understand common vulnerabilities and improve risk mitigation. Smaller platforms should also be included in evaluations to ensure harmful behaviour does not shift to less-regulated services. The involvement of experts and stakeholders will be crucial for ongoing improvement in the DSA’s implementation.
CERRE’s Ambitions for Europe 2024-2029

- Towards a new regulatory approach: Adopting novel ways of working to adapt to new challenges
- Build robust, resilient, and future-proof digital infrastructure and foundational technologies
- Ensure a safe, positive and fair online platform ecosystem
- Create a thriving, vibrant, and competitive data and innovation economy
- Developing fair and efficient energy and carbon markets
- Building resilient and sufficient energy infrastructure
- Creating appropriate institutional and governance framework to reach net zero
- Supporting effective, efficient, and fair public transport in Europe
- Establish a leading-edge, smart, and sustainable European Mobility Data Space