Erik van der Marel

The EU agenda for improving competitiveness is missing in action. Economic competitiveness has been a central plank in the development of the European Union – a relentless quest for policies that lead to more prosperity and that make European companies in world markets more successful. However, since the end of the Lisbon Agenda in 2010, economic competitiveness seems to have fallen off the EU map. This Agenda had its flaws, but it rightly sought to make Europe...

In this paper, we will discuss how Europe makes digital policy and how its digital economic performance can be improved. The focus is on the D9+ initiative. Launched in 2016 on the initiative of former Swedish trade minister, Ann Linde, nine countries with a particular interest in matters of the digital economy met to learn from each other and seek common ground on policy issues. On occasions, the D9+ Group has issued joint statements relating to regulatory...

The European Union (EU) has pursued an ambitious agenda for regulating the digital economy, and it is now planning to establish a new package of regulations, including the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the Digital Services Act (DSA), and a new regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI). These regulations build on an already established structure of digital and business regulations in Europe that is comparatively restrictive but that varies substantially between EU...

The proposed Digital Markets Act (DMA) is an opportunity to prevent and remedy anti-competitive conduct by large digital platforms. If the Act is designed in an adequate manner to target specific problems, it can improve the contestability of platform services markets and markets that rely substantially on digital services. However, the DMA takes a novel approach to regulation, and novelty in concepts and regulatory requirements can lead to outcomes that later have...