European Union President Ursula von der Leyen was confirmed in her role for another five years on Thursday after lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to re-elect her.
The scale of her support (401 in favor, 284 against, 15 abstentions) is much stronger than her last election, but it may speak less to any passionate enthusiasm for her leadership and more to lawmakers' concerns about growing geopolitical uncertainty, with the war still ongoing in Ukraine and the US facing elections in November that could see Donald Trump return to the White House by 2025. But her ability to keep cool in times of crisis seems to have won her at least some grudging respect.
So what would voting for continued EU leadership mean for EU tech policy through to 2029?
Von der Leyen has already pushed through major reforms to digital policy: During her first term, the EU approved the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), two landmark regulations that target exploitative business models of Big Tech companies and could significantly change how platforms operate.
The EU also passed legislation aimed at giving companies, researchers, the public sector, and consumers access to more data. And her decision to prioritize risk-based regulation of artificial intelligence brought tech policy into the spotlight at a time when many others thought it was too early to intervene. Now, with generative AI raising concerns about the risks of deepfakes and other AI-induced harm, her decision to get the EU in line seems rather prescient.
Von der Leyen’s second term is likely to be focused on deepening the impact of this earlier digital policymaking, with a clear commitment to “strengthen and strengthen” the implementation of the DMA and DSA, in line with the political guidelines she published accompanying her candidacy for a second term.
The EU digital rulebook comes into force
Enforcement is expected to be stepped up, especially in the e-commerce sector. The designated platforms subject to the Commission's scrutiny include AliExpress, Amazon, Booking, Google Shopping, Meta Marketplace, Shein, Temu and Zalando.
Tighter rules on children and young people's use of social media could be on the horizon, with a new tech policy on the horizon, with von der Leyen promising an EU-wide study into the “wider impact of social media on well-being” during her second term.
There may also be an increased crackdown on dark pattern design: “We will tackle unethical techniques used by online platforms by taking action against the addictive design of online services, such as infinite scrolling, default autoplay, and continuous push,” she wrote. “We will also develop an anti-cyberbullying plan and resolutely combat the growing trend of abusive online behavior.”
Although additional legislative action is possible, both of these areas could potentially be addressed by the Commission strengthening enforcement of the DSA.
Another key goal of von der Leyen's second term will be, in her words, “protecting our democracy,” which means tackling the continuing challenge posed by online disinformation.
This too could lead to increased enforcement of the DSA, requiring large platforms to identify and mitigate systemic risks in this area. The EU already has strong powers to go after tech giants that don't improve their behavior.
Her manifesto also promises to tackle “the ever-more-realistic deepfakes that are influencing elections across Europe.” The EU President says the Commission will ensure that the transparency requirements of the EU's new AI law are implemented. She also says the EU will “step up” its efforts against AI-generated content that could mislead people. How exactly that will be done remains to be seen.
Growth of AI and strengthening competitiveness
As well as strengthening key policies put in place during her first term, there are also signs that von der Leyen wants to refine her approach in some areas.
Boosting Europe's competitiveness is a particular focus of the second term, including a focus on supporting home-grown AI innovation.
We're already seeing signs of this, with the European Commission planning to reconfigure the EU's supercomputer network for training AI models, but further support measures are planned, including for AI start-ups and research, the latter through a new European AI Research Council.
Her manifesto also reiterates a message of urgency that the European Union needs to open up access to more data to boost competitiveness and expand use of digital services.
Here she repeatedly emphasizes the role of data access in driving AI development and other “cutting edge technologies,” calls for a “data revolution,” and works to develop a “European Data Union Strategy” that would simplify data access for companies and others by establishing a “clear and consistent legal framework” for data sharing. However, her manifesto commits to maintaining the EU's existing “high” privacy and security standards. So there's a clear balance to be struck here.
Von der Leyen's manifesto also calls for a new approach to competition policy to boost innovation and competitiveness, including through M&A, that appears designed to benefit start-ups over established businesses. Von der Leyen wrote that the EU should “do more to support companies as they scale up on global markets.”
There has also been discussion of greater support for companies that could be targets for killer takeovers, and he said he would like to see more progress ironing out the wrinkles in the EU's single market vision for online services, which remains a patchwork of pieces, also aimed at helping domestic start-ups scale.
In her second term, Ms von der Leyen's Commission is also expected to focus on cutting bureaucracy to promote business growth, responding to long-standing criticism that the EU's rule-making obsession is stifling innovation in the EU.
For example, her manifesto promises to propose “a new EU-wide legal status to support the growth of innovative companies”, which she says would take the form of the so-called 28th regime, “allowing companies to benefit from a simpler and more harmonised set of rules in certain sectors”.
It remains unclear who will benefit and how, but the proposal hints at the idea of some kind of general pan-EU regulatory sandbox to help startups, in addition to the AI-specific sandboxes the AI Act already has in place.
Biotech start-ups could also get a boost: Von der Leyen's next Commission will propose a new European biotechnology bill in 2025 to make it easier for researchers and start-ups to commercialize developments in labs and factories. “This will be part of a broader European life sciences strategy that looks at how to support the green and digital transition and develop high-value technologies,” von der Leyen said.
She outlined the key elements of her policy approach in an executive note, adding: “The world is in a race to determine who will be the first to achieve climate neutrality and the first to develop the technologies that will shape the global economy for decades to come. Europe cannot afford to fall behind in this race and lose its competitive edge, nor can it allow itself to remain strategically vulnerable.”