EU consultation on digital rules: time to think outside the box

By&nbspFred Roeder, EU Tech Lop pinch Euronews

Published on 20/09/2025 - 7:30 GMT+2

This communicative first appeared connected EU Tech Loop and has been published arsenic portion of an statement pinch Euronews.

The European Commission has launched a call for evidence connected nan alleged Digital Omnibus, which is portion of nan broader Digital Package connected Simplification. It will later beryllium complemented by nan Digital Fitness Check, which intends to “stress-test” nan coherence and cumulative effect of nan EU’s integer acquis governing business activities.

The consultation, unfastened to each Europeans to stock their views, will tally until October 14, 2025. It builds connected 3 erstwhile calls: nan Data Union Strategy, nan reappraisal of nan Cybersecurity Act, and nan Apply AI Strategy, which together person already received 718 original feedback responses.

This Omnibus intends to reside existing challenges and activity simplification successful a) nan information acquis (Data Governance Act, Free Flow of Non-Personal Data Regulation, Open Data Directive); b)  cooky rules nether nan e-Privacy Directive; c) cybersecurity incident reporting obligations; d) nan exertion of AI Act’s rule; and e) and different aspects related to nan European Digital ID framework.

Draghi called for a broader GDPR reform: will we person it?

The wide nonsubjective of this telephone for grounds is to trim businesses’ administrative compliance costs without “compromising nan objectives of nan underlying rules”. Having one’s barroom and eating it excessively is difficult — and while nary 1 would wish nan task of starring GDPR betterment moreover connected their worst enemy, it is simply a task that must beryllium done.

In nan explanatory document, nan Commission cautiously promises to “further research nan imaginable request for simplification measures successful nan realm of information regulation, to heighten information readiness and sharing”. 

That committedness should beryllium bolder. Just a fewer days ago, Mario Draghi called for a broader GDPR betterment — nan pinkish elephant successful nan room has been named, and it is now clip to reside it.

Limiting nan scope of nan Omnibus only to nan Data Governance Act, nan Open Data Directive, and non-personal information will not reside nan existent problem: nan GDPR’s overly wide meaning of individual data, Member States’ gold-plating, and their reluctance to stock information pinch European startups and scaleups, often nether nan pretext of GDPR compliance. 

On apical of this lies a persistent fearfulness that greater openness could lead to information “ending up successful American hands”. These problems are solvable — and it is precocious clip they were solved. 

Some would reason that “this is not really nan EU works” — that nan matter belongs to different moving group, that nan Danish Presidency is presently handling it, aliases that GDPR betterment could not beryllium included successful this telephone for feedback owed to ineligible constraints. Understandable — but that is precisely what interservice consultations, and nan tone of simplification and amended governance, are for.