tl;dr
C’est parti ! A new Parliament was voted in and the dust is now settling. Committee appointments are currently being negotiated
This and previous reports on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
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Post-EU Elections Dust Settling
We have new house elected. Overall the Liberals (ALDE), the Greens and various far-right groups made significant gains, while the traditional centre-left and centre-right lost, although less than some expected. [1] The dust is settling, several parties and individually elected members are negotiating to join various groups. Will the four Pirates sit with the Greens? [2] Will Farage and Salvini join forces? [3] We will know in the coming days. Apart from political alignment the most important question discussed during such negotiations is committee appointments. The committees to follow closely for us are Legal Affairs (JURI), Internal Market (IMCO), Civil Liberties (LIBE), Culture (CULT), Industry & Research (ITRE) and INTA (Trade).
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Part of the negotiations that have been kicked off already on election night include who the new Commission President will be. Things are far from certain, as the person will need a majority for which they will need the support of at least three, more likely four, political groups. Part of what the Commission President can do is set priorities, although she or he cannot freely appoint Commissioners (they are suggested by Member States).
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Important for us is that the Commission services are already working on the so-called “mission letters”. These are the letters by which the new President appoints the Commissioners and lays out their priorities. We know for a fact that an E-Commerce Directive reform is seriously being worked on and will most likely be part of the new “Digital Commissioner’s” portofolio. We also expect to have a new Commissioner heading DG Connect. While Mariya Gabriel (BG EPP) has been re-elected and will almost certainly be re-nominated by the Bulgarian government, she has indicated she would like to switch DGs.
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Big Digital Dossiers to Come
As mentioned above, the E-Commerce Directive will be a cornerstone of the digital reform agenda over the next five years. Image the “Upload Filter” debates but times 100. This directive also covers all sorts of IPR infringements - copyright, trademark, patents, design - online. This horizontal layout will be a challenge. We wouldn’t want the debates about counterfeit Lacoste shirts to proliferate into the discussions about sharing of copyrighted content, but it will happen. We expect the IMCO and the JURI committees to fight over the lead on this file, which JURI gaining the upper hand.
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Other than that ePrivacy and Terrorist Content Online Regulation negotiations will continue. New rapporteurs are possible.
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Poland Challenges Article 17 at CJEU
The Polish government filed a challenge at the Court of Justice of the EU against Article 17 (ex. Article 13) of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. [4] At this stage, pre-transposition into national law, only Member States can do so. Frankly, we don’t know what the challenge contains, apart from vague language by Polish government officials, who specified that it focuses on Articles 17(4b) and 17(4c). A freedom of information request by Polish digital rights think and do thank Centrum Cyfrowe has been denied. [5]
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Transposition of Copyright Directive
7 June 2021. Mark this date in your calendars! This is the date by which all EU Member States must have transposed the Copyright Directive into national law or risk being sued by the European Commission. France is already clearing the new press publisher right out of the way [6] and will focus on the rest soon. According the final text of Article 17 the Commission is expected to produce guidelines for Member States on how to ensure that illegal content doesn’t get published on online platforms without removing legal content. We expect something like a stakeholder dialogue or a working group before the end of the year, but nothing official yet. Most Member States seems to be willing to wait for the guidelines before they implement the reform nationally.
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We will be working on the transposition over the next 24 months in all EU Member States. We can help with expertise, positioning, event organisation, coalition building. If you would like to be part of the effort and we are not in touch yet, shoot us a message off-list!
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[1]https://election-results.eu/
[4]https://www.techspot.com/news/80238-poland-files-challenge-new-eu-copyright-law.html
[5]https://twitter.com/nmileszyk/status/1132877068633554945
[6]http://www.senat.fr/dossier-legislatif/ppl17-705.html