Hello!

The new Commission structure and designated Commissioners have been published. We are now looking down at likely two months of hearings in the European Parliament. MEPs need to approve each candidate, else their national government and von der Leyen will have to nominate someone else.

Dimi & Michele

=== New Commission Structure ===

The new European Commission structure https://images.jifo.co/14978916_1726677632028.png reflects the strengthened political power of Ursula von der Leyen. French Commissioner Thierry Breton (a powerful antagonist of von der Leyen until now) was replaced by Stéphane Séjourné. Powerful Danish Commissioner for competition Margareth Verstagher and the High Representative Josep Borrell are also leaving. This likely means that von der Leyen will have more power in her hands.

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She appointed six executive Vice-Presidents. The most relevant to us is the Finnish nomination Henna Virkkunen. We expect the Parliament to reject at least one deisgnate.

=== The Portfolios a.k.a. “Mission Letters” ===

The President of the Commission sends each nominated Commissioner a so-called "mission letter" containing their instructions and political tasks. Commissioner Within the newly designated Commission college https://commission.europa.eu/about-european-commission/president-elect-ursula-von-der-leyen/commissioners-designate-2024-2029_en, we have read through them and identified some key Commissioners who will be responsible for issues and files relevant to free knowledge:

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Henna Virkkunen https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/3b537594-9264-4249-a912-5b102b7b49a3_en?filename=Mission%20letter%20-%20VIRKKUNEN.pdf (Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy) will be the main figure dealing with digital issues, including the DSA implementation, copyright and AI. She will also oversee the Directorate-General for "ass things digital" - DG CONNECT (a.k.a. DG CNCT).

— She will be working together with Stephane Sejourné https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/6ef52679-19b9-4a8d-b7b2-cb99eb384eca_en?filename=Mission%20letter%20-%20S%C3%89JOURN%C3%89.pdf, (Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy) who, among other things, will be responsible for the internal market and intellectual property.

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Virkunnen will oversee the work of Michael McGrath https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/907fd6b6-0474-47d7-99da-47007ca30d02_en?filename=Mission%20letter%20-%20McGRATH.pdf, Commissioner responsible for Democracy, Justice and Rule of law. He will be in charge of the implementation of EMFA and transposition of the anti-SLAPP directive, the Democracy Shield, the rule of law, disinformation and foreign interference as well as the application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

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Glenn Micallef https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/c8b8682b-ca47-461b-bc95-c98195919eb0_en?filename=Mission%20letter%20-%20MICALLEF.pdf, Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture and Sport (under the supervision of the Executive Vice-President, Roxana Mînzatu https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/27ac73de-6b5c-430d-8504-a76b634d5f2d_en?filename=Mission%20letter%20-%20MINZATU.pdf, responsible for for People, Skills and Preparedness) will be in charge of the Cultural Compass, the EU Strategy on the rights of the child, cyberbullying as well as AI Strategy for cultural and creative industries.

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Finally, Ekaterina Zaharieva https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/130e9159-8616-4c29-9f61-04592557cf4c_en?filename=Mission%20letter%20-%20ZAHARIEVA.pdf will be the Commissioner in charge of Startups, Research and Innovation. In particular, she will be in charge of the set-up of the European AI Research Council.

=== Copyright and AI ===

Neither a full blown copyright reform, nor another attempt at a major AI regulation after the AI Act has passed mere months ago. However the creative sector is quite nervous about the effects of generative AI on their economic models, both on the side of the training data and output.

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On the side of training data Ms Renate Nikolay (Deputy Director-General of DG CNCT) said at a parliamentary event that the Commission is considering setting up a “central registry of opt-outs” for platforms and services that don’t want their content to be used.

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The European Commission notably is also leaving the door open to do “something” on AI and copyright. Designated Vice-President Virkkunen in her mission letter is asked to “consider the need to further improve the copyright framework to address new challenges. This was also confirmed by Commission representatives at various meetings.

=== CSAM ===

The regulation to tackle child sexual abuse materials https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2022/0155(COD)&l=en online is stuck in Council, mainly over the disagreement of how to deal with private messaging systems. There was an attempt from the Hungarian Presidency https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cfOCJ1ILjra7ssge-LY9VI-FUUFlJFZX/view?usp=sharing to push a compromise a few weeks ago, but it was rejected by several Member States including Germany, Poland, Nederlands

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A new attempt will be tried again, likely on 10 October. The proposed compromises include an idea to force users of messaging services to agree to scanning for known CSAM content or else not be allowed to share multimedia.

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Should the Council agree on a negotiating position they will have to negotiate with the European Parliament. Its positions would allow the scanning of private chats only with judicial consent.

=== Child Protection/Age-Verification ===

Tightly connected, but much broader, is the topic of child protection online. It will not go away and we should prepare for many more national and supranational, legislative and non-legislative initiatives. Most worrisome for us would be if new obligations would require Wikimedia projects to collect sensitive user data.

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There are numerous initiatives across Europe and the world to require (some) online platforms to perform age-verification. The latest EU-related statement comes from Caroline Stage (Danish Digitalisation Minister), who told Politico Europe: “We also call for an ambitious use-case strategy for the European Digital Identity Wallet [...] the wallet is key to impose effective and privacy-respecting age-verification.”

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The European Commission is preparing Guidelines for the protection of minors online https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14352-Protection-of-minors-guidelines_en, something it is empowered to do under the Digital Services Act. The Wikimedia Foundation has submitted its response https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14352-Protection-of-minors-guidelines/F3496424_en .

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The Commission has also published its mapping of different age assurance typologies https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/research-report-mapping-age-assurance-typologies-and-requirements, laying down what practices are known, how they work and what the benefits and drawbacks are. The ten methods examined are: (1) Self-declaration; (2) Hard identifiers; (3) Credit cards; (4) Self-sovereign identity; (5) Account holder confirmation; (6) Cross-platform authentication; (7) Facial age estimation; (8) Behavioural profiling; (9) Capacity-testing; and (10) Third-party age assurance service.

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It is positive that the Commission report emphasises the need to account for requirements such as proportionality, privacy, security, accuracy, functionality, inclusivity, participation when choosing a method.

==== France ====

On the 21st of September the President Emmanuel Macron formally appointed the new government, led by Michel Barnier (former minister, EU Commissioner and chief Brexit negotiator). Here you may find the full list of ministers https://www.info.gouv.fr/actualite/la-composition-du-gouvernement-de-michel-barnier .

Worth it to highlight that the former Secretary of State responsible for digital affairs (attached to the Minister for the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty), Ms Marina Ferrari https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Ferrari, has been replaced by Ms Clara Chappaz https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Chappaz. The new Secretary of State will be responsible for Artificial Intelligence and digital affairs within the Ministry of Higher Education and Research https://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/fr/clara-chappaz-secretaire-d-etat-chargee-de-l-intelligence-artificielle-et-du-numerique-97460. This seems a new and positive approach.

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