A Real Digital Omnibus for European Competitiveness and Security
Simplification is a complicated project. The instinct behind the Draghi, Letta, and Niinistö reports is sound — Europe’s regulatory architecture has accumulated complexity faster than it has delivered value — and the Commission’s Digital Omnibus is meant to answer it. But good regulation is not an obstacle to competitiveness; it is one of its preconditions. Markets work when they are a trusted, reliable environment with legible rules and predictable enforcement, and where that environment is missing they default to the incumbents who can absorb uncertainty as a cost of doing business.
A Real Digital Omnibus for European Competitiveness and Security goes through the data aspects of the proposal with that test in mind. A small number of provisions achieve genuine simplification and make the rules more reliable; a larger number, however well-intentioned, would produce outcomes contrary to the Commission’s own stated aims. The report gives trilogue interlocutors the framework and background to tell which provisions to retain, which to improve, and which to reconsider.
With: Robin Berjon