eco – Association of the German Internet Industry e. V. welcomes the new EU Commission, elected today by the European Parliament. “The new Commission is well equipped, with Andrus Ansip as Vice President for the digital single market, and Günther Oettinger as Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society,” said Oliver Süme, Director of Policy and Law at eco. The association supports Oettinger in his intention to establish European regulations and common standards in the areas of data protection and data security. “IT security is a cross-sector challenge which urgently requires a European solution,” Süme explaied, and went on to say that Oettinger will be expected to push for European regulations on these issues. “eco also calls for the embedding of the planned German IT Security Act at the European level in the planned NIS Directive.” In the area of critical infrastructure in this draft legislation, he sees it as decisive that the determination of the scope of responsibility for critical infrastructure be differentiated and precise, and undertaken jointly with the industry in a thorough and transparent process.
Along with a European Directive for Network and Information Security, eco sees these topics as priorities for the network policy agenda in Europe: “Firstly, the consistent continuation of the idea of a regulatory framework for a common, harmonized digital single market which supports market diversity and fair trading conditions and competition. Secondly, the rapid conclusion of a Data Protection Directive which creates a unified level of data protection for the entire area of data processing in Europe. And thirdly, a clear rejection of the re-introduction of blanket data retention.”
Read the summaries of the European Parliament hearings of the EU Commissioners on network policy topics here.
