AK EUROPA has joined a coalition of digital rights and consumer protection organisations – initiated by epicenter.works and European Digital Rights (EDRi) – in writing to the European Commission to raise serious concerns over the fourth batch of Implementing Acts under the eIDAS Regulation. The signatories warn that several provisions not only fail to resolve previously identified shortcomings, but risk to undermine core protections enshrined in the regulation itself.

Endless scrolling, autoplay, and push notifications are features that encourage prolonged use of social media, impacting users' well-being and health. On 5 March 2026, AK EUROPA and the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) hosted a public event to discuss addictive design and the proposed Digital Fairness Act.

A broad coalition of 86 consumer protection and digital rights organisations and 116 individual signatories has published a joint call urging the European Commission to develop an ambitious Digital Fairness Act (DFA).

On 11 February 2026, the Council of the EU formally abolished the de minimis exemption – and thus the duty-free status – for small parcel shipments under
€ 150, a threshold that had resulted in millions of parcels flooding the EU-market. Starting in July 2026, a flat customs duty of € 3 per parcel will be introduced as an interim measure until the EU customs reform is completed in 2028. We spoke with Mykyta Sobko, a trade and customs policy expert at BEUC, about the challenges and opportunities presented by the customs reform.

This week, on February 11, 2026, the Council also formally confirmed the abolition of the so-called de minimis exemption for small parcel shipments under 150 Euro. This threshold had promoted a business model based on sending millions of individual parcels directly to consumers. A model that, in addition to having a major environmental impact and flooding the EU market with harmful and dangerous products, also overwhelms customs authorities in the EU due to the huge volume of shipments.

On 19 November 2025, the EU Commission published its strategic plan for European consumer policy over the next five yeras. The plan is intended to complement the key initiatives of the current legislative period to strengthen competitiveness and deepen the internal market. The priorities and measures place particular emphasis on a high level of protection for European consumers.

Every day, an estimated 12 million parcels arrive in the EU by air. The rapid growth of e-commerce has a significant environmental impact and also leads to more and more non-compliant and dangerous goods arriving in the European market. A visit to one of Europe's most important cargo airports, organised by the European Consumer Organisation BEUC, highlighted how difficult it is in practice to monitor and impose sanctions on unsafe products, counterfeits, undeclared goods and fraud.

At the end of last year, the EU Parliament set up a special committee on the housing crisis in the EU. The draft of the decisive report is now available. It aims to propose solutions for decent, sustainable and affordable housing. Whether the current version will succeed in doing so is questionable. As the Commissioner responsible, Dan Jørgensen, recently noted at an event in the EU Parliament, the first draft is controversial.

In its fourth omnibus package, the European Commission proposes that the new category of "small mid-cap companies" should be exempt from the obligation to maintain a record of processing activities under Article 30(5) of the GDPR, provided their data processing does not pose a high risk. However, this proposal overlooks the fact that maintaining such records helps companies gain a clear understanding of their own data processing activities and to make the right decisions in terms of data protection law.

With the Omnibus IV package, which was presented on 21 May 2025, the Commission aims to introduce a definition regarding small mid-cap companies. This is justified by the need to reduce the administrative burden on businesses. However, in concrete terms the proposals would, among others, result in massive erosion of data protection. Over the summer, the Commission conducted a consultation on the Omnibus IV Package, in which AK also participated.