Poorly defined scope, conflicts with the GDPR, arbitrary rejection of non-European players, balkanization of digital Europe: the European Data Act, which should enter its trilogue phase in a few weeks, will have to be greatly improved to become a credible text. Stakeholders are almost unanimous: there is a gap between the European Commission’s promise to « stimulate the development of a competitive data market » and the current reality of the Data Act. The European Data Act proposal was tabled a year ago by the Commission. At the time, Thierry Breton said that « an important step has been taken today to open up access to a wealth of industrial data in Europe, for the benefit of businesses, consumers, public services and society as a whole. » The text, which promises data portability and interoperability, just received its first vote in the European Parliament last week. The rapporteur, Pilar del Castillo Vera (EPP, Spain) stressed that « competitiveness and innovation are part of the DNA of the text ». This is not the opinion of several representatives of industrial stakeholders that we contacted, who are concerned about the poor quality of the Commission’s…
