Proper impact assessments prior to proposals are crucial, Czech businesses agreed with MEPs

At the end of November, just before the beginning of the mandate of the new European Commission chaired by President Ursula von der Leyen, CEBRE founders met Czech MEPs for another regular meeting. The meeting was focused primarily on the digital agenda and topics such as taxation of digital companies, development of artificial intelligence and the Digital Services Act.

As regards the overall approach of the new Commission, the digital agenda is one of its priorities, which was welcomed by the MEPs and business representatives. However, the Commission does not put enough emphasis on some other key areas, especially the internal market. A positive thing is that the Commission has promised to issue only non-legislative reports in the first hundred days in its function, as thorough impact assessments need to be made before any legislative proposals.

The Digital Services Act will be one of the crucial proposals of the Commission that will be based on the revision of the e-commerce directive, but will encompass many more digital topics. However, not only new proposals will keep the stakeholders busy next year. According to MEPs, there will be a strong push to find consensus on the e-Privacy regulation as well. Although Ursula von der Leyen promised to present a lot of papers during the first 100 days, Czech businesses think that more time is needed for proper analysis of the digital environment and therefore hope that the proposals will be of only non-legislative character, as promised.

It is necessary to finish the current proposals and deal with current issues before opening new ones. As for the taxation of digital companies, business representatives warned that many traditionally non-digital companies progressively start to belong to the digital sector as well. The EU should seek a global solution at the OECD level, not introduce EU-only legislation.