Towards a Pillar on Digitalization & Technological Innovation in Europe: Impact of Digitalization on Core Values, Regulation & Enforcement
The aim of this project is to analyse and understand how the development of digital technology and innovation impacts the basic principles of the law, the core values and what needs for regulation and enforcement it creates. These developments have impact on the whole spectrum of the domains of law such as competition law, Internal Market, fundamental rights, financial markets, criminal and international law. Digitalisation has become an increasingly relevant element of the EU policy. EU in other parts of the world is sometimes considered to be the champion of regulation in the field (e.g. GDPR, the new ambitious proposal on digital evidence, antitrust proceedings against Google). It is to be expected that the importance of this field within the EU agenda will only grow. This project’s ambition is to be at the forefront and to impact through research output these developments.
The overall starting point and a general umbrella idea of this project is based on the existence of two phenomena that are of critical impact in this field.
- The lines between the public and private domain in the era of digitalization are increasingly blurring; the role of the private companies becomes crucial is the domains which would traditionally be reserved for the state; this raises various questions on legitimacy, core values (including fundamental rights), regulation & enforcement;
- There are no physical borders in a digital market, which makes transnational regulation & enforcement essential; yet other types of borders may be erected.
The project is structured accordingly into two streams reflecting these two phenomena.