It’s just, “they want to be the ones setting those standards,” Chen said.
The Trump administration pressured Brussels to tone down its tech regulation during heated trade talks this summer, POLITICO previously reported.
That the EU followed through with scaling back its tech laws just as the U.S. is pressing the EU is bad optics, said Schaake, the former lawmaker. “The timing of the whole simplification [package] is very bad,” she said.
She argued that it’s essential to deal with the unnecessary burden on companies, but issuing the digital omnibus after the U.S. pressure “looks like a response to that criticism.”
Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier dismissed the idea that the EU was acting on U.S. pressure. “On the digital omnibus, absolutely no third country had an influence on our sovereign simplification agenda. Because this omnibus is about Europe: less administrative burden, less overlaps, less costs,” Regnier said in a comment on Friday.
“We have always been clear: Europe has its sovereign right to legislate,” Regnier added. “Nothing in the omnibus is watering down our digital legislation and we will keep enforcing it, firmly but always fairly.”
This article has been updated to include new developments.