From Drafting to Impact: A Blueprint for Future-Proof EU Digital Laws

Axel Voss became a Member of the European Parliament in 2009, representing the electoral district of Middle Rhine, which includes the cities of Cologne, Bonn and Leverkusen and the districts Rhein-Sieg and Rhein-Erft.

Mr Voss is a member of the European People’s Party group. Since 2017, he is the political group’s speaker for the Committee on Legal Affairs as well as member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and substitute member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.

Besides European Law, Voss’s main area of expertise is the digitialisation of daily life. Mr Voss will be in charge of drafting the AIDA Committee’s final report on AI in the European Parliament; previously, he was the rapporteur of the report on a civil liability regime for artificial intelligence as well as on the Copyright Directive in the digital single market and also shadow rapporteur of the report on corporate due diligence and corporate accountability.

Dr. Christophe Carugati is the founder of Digital Competition. He is a renowned and passionate expert on digital and competition issues with a strong reputation for doing impartial, high-quality research. After his PhD in law and economics on Big Data and Competition Law, he is an ex-affiliate fellow at the economic think-tank Bruegel and an ex-lecturer in competition law and economics at Lille University.

Lorelien Hoet is Director of EU Government Affairs at Microsoft. In this role, she has been dealing notably with data protection, European telecommunications regulation, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

Before joining Microsoft in 2018, she worked as a legal executive at Proximus, and held different positions including Head of Legal Consumer business, and Director of Regulatory Affairs at Mobistar (Orange) in charge of the follow-up and application of telecommunications regulation and competition law files.

She holds an LL.M from KU Leuven.

Ben Schroeter is the Director for Economic Policy & Strategic Engagement and a Member of the Extended Leadership Team at Booking.com. His team leads the global public policy work on competition and consumer issues, taxation, data, privacy, AI, and short term rentals. Before joining Booking.com, Ben spent extensive time in consulting and worked as a policy advisor for the German government. An economist by training, Ben holds a Master in Competition Economics from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics and a Master in Competition Law from King’s College, London. 

Maciej Styczen is an Assistant Director in the International Affairs department of the Coimisiun na Mean (the Irish media and online platforms regulator). Among others, in CNAM Maciej responsible for the international engagement and cooperation with the EU institutions and other regulators within the ERGA/Media Board and the EBDS. Previously Maciej served as a policy and legal in officer in the European Commission, where he played a leading role in the preparation of the European Media Freedom Act. Maciej has a legal background as well as holds a diploma in the European studies.

Vanessa is Senior Advisor – Competition at The European Consumer Organisation, BEUC.

Vanessa focusses on ensuring that consumer interests are taken into account in European competition policy, in particular in Digital Markets and Sustainability and in key merger, antitrust and DMA enforcement cases before the Commission and EU Courts. Since September 2020 Vanessa also acts as a non-governmental advisor to the International Competition Network for the European Commission.

Prior to joining BEUC, Vanessa was a Partner in the Competition Practice of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Allen & Overy in Brussels (as well as in London and Düsseldorf). In between these roles, she was a Member of the Cabinet of the Commissioner for Competition Policy at the European Commission (responsible for mergers and antitrust cases and policy), Special Advisor to the US FTC in Washington DC, and General Counsel, Company Secretary and Executive Vice President at Visa Europe.

Alexandre de Streel is the Academic Director of the digital research programme at the Brussels think-tank Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE), professor of European law at the University of Namur and visiting professor at the College of Europe (Bruges) and SciencesPo Paris. He sits in the scientific committees of the Knight-Georgetown Institute (US), the European University Institute-Centre for a Digital Society (Italy) and the Mannheim Centre for Competition and Innovation (Germany).

His main research areas are regulation and competition policy in the digital economy (telecommunications, platforms and data) as well as the legal issues raised by the developments of artificial intelligence. He regularly advises the European Union and international organisations on digital regulation.

Previously, Alexandre held visiting positions at New York University Law School, the European University Institute in Florence, Panthéon-Assas (Singapore campus), Barcelona Graduate School of Economics and the University of Louvain. He also worked for the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister, the Belgian Permanent Representation to the European Union, and the European Commission. He has also been the chair of the expert group on the online platform economy, advising the European Commission.

Marco Bassini is Assistant Professor of Fundamental Rights and Artificial Intelligence at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society – Tilburg University. Previously, he served as adjunct professor of Constitutional Law and Internet Law at Bocconi University, where he also was appointed coordinator for the LLM program in Law of Internet Technology from 2020 to 2022. From 2017 to 2021, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Bocconi University. In 2016 he was a postdoctoral Emile Noël Fellow at New York University and he obtained his PhD in Constitutional Law and European Law from the University of Verona. For over a decade Marco has combined his academic career with legal practice, working at international law firms in Milan and Rome and serving as data protection officer with leading organizations. He also served as external advisor, among others, to the Italian Communications Authority and to the Italian Ministry for Technological Innovation. Marco’s research interests include: protection of human rights in the digital age, regulatory strategies for technology, populism and the Internet.