The Tech Brief

Technical standards will play a key role in how the EU’s upcoming AI rulebook will work in practice. We discuss the challenges and policy trends in the standardization process in Europe with Connor Dunlop, European public policy lead at the Ada Lovelace Institute, and Jan Rampala, policy advisor at Business Europe.

The European Commission has recently proposed a Gigabit recommendation as part of a broader Connectivity Package. We discuss the potential impact of the recommendation on the European telecom market with Kamila Kloc, Acting Director for Connectivity at the European Commission, and Luc Hindryckx, Director General at the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA).

The Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act include unprecedented measures forcing online platforms to share data. We caught up with Inge Graef, an associate professor at Tilburg University, and Filippo Lancieri, a researcher at the ETH Zurich University, who recently published a study for the Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE) on how these provisions might work in practice.

Over two years ago, the Commission announced its planned regulation on political advertising, designed to increase transparency and clamp down on disinformation in EU elections. Trilogue negotiations on the proposed regulation are now underway, with the Swedish Council presidency hoping to reach a general approach by June. On this week’s Tech Brief podcast, MEP Sandro Gozi, who was the rapporteur for the file in Parliament, discusses its progress, the trilogue outlook and some of the key points of contention.

The Irish Data Protection Commissioner plays a critical role in enforcing the EU General Data Protection Regulation. We discussed with Commissioner Helen Dixon enforcement trends, different legal interpretations with other data protection authorities and recent decisions on cross-border cases.

All major EU institutions banned TikTok on work phones in the last week. We discuss the ban and the geopolitical context in which it takes part with Jade Nester, Head of Data Public Policy for Europe at TikTok, and Katja Muñoz, Research Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

he European Commission finally opened its public consultation on the senders-pay initiative, also known as fair contribution and traffic tax. We discussed the direction taken by the initiative so far and the options on the table with Julia Maxwell, SVP for Viaplay group and a member of the EU VOD Coalition, and Alessandro Gropelli, Deputy Director General at ETNO.

The coming weeks will be fundamental for the DSA to take shape, as the European Commission is working on secondary legislation to define critical provisions of the regulation, and large online platforms are taking their first steps toward compliance. EURACTIV caught up with Mathias Vermeulen, Public Policy Director at AWO, and Asha Allen, Advocacy Director in the Europe office of the Center for Democracy and Technology, to discuss some of the most crucial open questions on the DSA implementation.

In the past weeks, Big Tech companies have slashed their staff in preparation for an economic recession. What do these mass layoffs mean for the tech sector? Are we looking at structural adjustments or temporary fluctuations? And what does this all mean for Europe? We try to answer these questions with Chengyi Lin, affiliate professor of strategy at the business school INSEAD. 

While the regulation to establish a European digital identity continues its legislative process, the European Commission has recently launched a pilot project to see how this could work in practice. We discuss the project and its potential impact on the legislation with Gregory Kuhlmey, digital identity programme manager at IDEMIA, the French security company that leads the consortium behind the pilot.