On 21.3.2018, the Commission presented a European model on the “Fair taxation of the EU’s digital economy”. Intended is a digital corporation tax for transnationally acting corporations, whose number has immensely grown in the past years. Currently, they are bearing less than half of the tax burden of “classic” companies. Hence, the digital tax shall be bound to the place of value-added and no longer to a company’s headquarters.

On Thursday 26th October, against the resistance of lobbies and major corporations, the European Parliament voted by majority to adopt a negotiating mandate, which, from the consumer’s point of view, shall significantly improve data protection.

On May 18th the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy as well as the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection – as the last ones of several committees of the European Parliament – delivered their opinion on the communication of the Commission on online-platforms. The final debate and vote on the proposal concerned and on one on the “collaborative economy” is planned in June 2017.

Two years ago, the European Commission presented 16 initiatives within the strategy for the Digital Single Market. On Wednesday, the responsible Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip presented the mid-term review of this strategy.

“Digital Market or Digital Slavery” was the topic of a high-level panel debate organised by the Brussels Office of the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB Europabüro), the Brussels Office of the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour (AK Europa) and IG Metall. The tenor of the evening headed in a clear direction: admittedly, digitization and spread of online-platforms brought with them a multitude of opportunities and potentials.

The European Commission is pursuing its "Digital Single Market Strategy" as one of its priorities. Its accomplishment is supposed to add billions of euros to the European economy and to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs for younger job seekers.

Binding rules for online platforms with regard to labour and social standards as well as consumer protection continue to be an issue of dispute among MEPs, as shown this week by the debate on the draft report on online platforms in the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and in the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection.

This week, the work of the various EU institutions was under the sign of the advancing digitisation of business and society. Not only Parliament dealt with this issue in various reports; the Commission and ministers of the Member States also discussed it at the so-called “Digital Day” in Rome.

Last week, the European Commission presented the so-called “Digital Economy and Society Index” (DESI). Austria is again ranking in 10th place. Commissioner Andrus Anisp requested further investments to prevent the gap between the front-runners of digitalisation and those who made less progress from widening even further. With regard to international comparison, EU average shows that there is still a lot more to be done.

During the last session in Strasbourg the European Parliament adopted two reports to strengthen the Digital Single Market and the European economy. Both reports contain proposals on the future of a European data infrastructure and the regulation of robots; in addition, they are. The Robotics Report is one of the first global attempts to create a legal basis with regard to artificial intelligence and advanced robot technology.