Berg: "One of the most important regulatory projects in Europe urgently needs to be improved"
Berlin, 14 March 2023 - Today, the European Parliament will exchange views and vote on the European Commission's proposal for the Data Act. Among other things, the Data Act is intended to advance the exchange of data between companies and from companies to the public sector. Bitkom President Achim Berg states:
"The Data Act is currently one of the most important regulatory projects at EU level and plays a decisive role in determining whether Europe moves forward on the path to a digital world. The European Parliament has not really succeeded in eliminating the many shortcomings in the Commission's proposal. In its current version, the Data Act would continue to force companies to share trade secrets as well. Reading the Data Act will make countries that are less friendly to us cheer up in joy. The Data Act does a disservice to the goal of digital and technological sovereignty with its proposals. The possibility protect business-critical data from access by competitors has to prevail. Guaranteeing this must be one of the goals of the upcoming trilogue negotiations.
Additionally, it is particularly critical that the Data Act currently defines important terms such as data or products very broadly, so that the scope of application is almost unlimited. Clear definitions and delimitations are needed to create the necessary clarity and legal certainty for all parties involved. This also applies to the very extensive data access rights granted to the public sector. These should apply exclusively to clearly defined emergency situations such as a pandemic or a flood disaster.
Bitkom also sees an urgent need of improvement for rules that interfere with competition and the contractual freedom of companies when it comes to cloud switching. We support the goal of making it easier to switch providers in the cloud sector, but the path now taken via maximum switching periods is too rigid and does not meet practice requirements . For example, there are very specific and highly complex cloud switching projects, designed over several years, which could no longer be offered at current conditions if short deadlines are prescribed. This is neither in the interest of the providers nor the users of cloud services."
