by Viktoria Loidl, MAEUS student
This blog post was written for the course "Dialogue on Europe" during the Fall 2019 semester.
Photo Credit: European Union Center, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign |
The
US and China have been dominating the digital world over the past few decades. As
part of its new strategy from 2020-2024, the
European Commission is intending to improve its competitiveness to be able
to keep up with its most challenging competitors. China’s immense economic
growth has been causing anxiety in Europe for a while. Add digitalization to
the mix and it becomes even more problematic. Digitalization is omnipresent and
growing as well as changing rapidly. Despite the EU’s largest economies’
efforts to keep up with the changes, it has been rather unsuccessful so far.
Many EU officials call for a “comprehensive approach” to be able to tackle the
great array of challenges that come with the digital economy. Most would agree
that changes are necessary to further support Europe’s aim to become more
competitive. However, it is crucial to notice that simply creating or changing
EU internal policies might not be enough. Competition and digitalization is
deeply entangled with external tools such as the EU’s trade competence and the
exercise of its power abroad.
The EU has become a noticeable power in
regulating the digital world, however, its been lagging
in its own digital innovation. Exercising its power and forcing influential
tech companies to follow its regulations has been a relatively easy task for
the European Union. The main market of companies such as Facebook, is outside
the United States, most often in Europe itself. Therefore, the EU has been able
to enforce quite smoothly by offering access to its market in exchange for the
acceptance of its regulations. The EU evolved to be a global policy maker, yet
somehow failed to keep up its own innovation. The US and China’s innovation is
far superior Europe’s innovation. While some claim that this might be
problematic moving forward, others, such as Margrethe Vestager, are convinced
that the EU is following a [European] value-based innovation approach.
In
conclusion, the digital world is changing rapidly. The EU has finally jumped
onto the train and decided to tackle this problematic area by creating a
digital strategy as part of the new Commission’s agenda. So far, the EU has
been following a regulatory approach and it has yet to be determined if it will
continue this route or might become more innovative as well.
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