European Data Act: a botched job
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…