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so
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[Applause]
[Music]
ladies and gentlemen welcome the
moderator of the session
annette noma
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so good morning afternoon to everybody
who has joined us here
either in a room or also through our
virtual channels
from all across the world hopefully i'm
very very
extremely happy to be back here in
practice lava in slovakia for another
klopsec event
and even more grateful to be moderating
this panel on big deck and european
regulations here
so my name is anet numa and i work as a
digital transformation advisor at the
estonia briefing center
but i'm going to be moderating this
entire panel today here
so when we talk about the european
innovation ecosystems
there is a clear need to find ways how
eu companies could compete against
global rivals in a way that is why it is
also very important to elaborate
um the areas where to invest in and if
we want to boost the tech
capabilities in a way we we have to
think about
what could be the best uh areas on that
side
but however besides that the european
union has been
coming up with new regulations such as
dsa
or tma that raises a question whether
eu by regulating big tech companies is
actually
setting global standards for the rest of
the world
or at the same time there could be a
question are we
actually stopping innovation here so
we're going to elaborate on different
topics today
what are the next steps we need to take
to design and establish
functional and of course also forward
thinking systems
uh of of regulating that heavy weights
and unknown of course sensors
competitive market
in democratic norms here but i'm more
delighted now to of course also
introduce you our wonderful
speakers panelists today uh who sadly as
you can see are not joining with me here
in on the stage in a way but are joining
with me
uh from from different places all around
the world um so the first person i have
a honor to introduce is oliver croissant
on olivier is the director channel of
directorate channel
for competition and working in the eu
commission in
brussels and he is he has already joined
by the way european
commission in the year of 1992 very very
long time ago
and in the merger task force in
directorate channel for competition so
oliver thank you for joining us today
and and secondly we do have uh someone
joining us from new york city very far
away so good morning to you anna
westfall
i know bradford uh who is the uh henry l
moses professor of law international
organizations columbia law school
uh from new york city as i as i said
before
and she's also director of for
colombia's european legal studies
central
and by the way she is also the author of
um
a book called the brussels effect how
the european union's rules the word
which is by the way also named as one of
the best books of 2020
by the foreign affairs and as a last
person
um we have uh together with me here on a
panel
hendrick burgoo who is joining us also
from brussels if i'm correct
um he is the head of the government
affairs europe and russia
representing apple and he is
representing apple's interests with
governments and public stakeholders on a
wide numbers officials
and of course also promoting apple's
growth investments in these regions
and he is the former president also of
the american chamber
of commerce today european union here
but before i'm going to start with my
questions here uh there is also a couple
of housekeeping rules so
uh people who who have joined me here in
this room uh you have also
a chance to ask your own questions there
is a microphone right over here where
you can just stand up
and and stop me in a ways and raise your
hand that you have a question
and then we can take your questions
there is another opportunity also that
you can send us questions to the klopse
gap
and we use lido for that and then the
third
and last option to submit your questions
and talk to our experts today
is to also connect over the zoom
application
to the virtual studio as well but now
not to waste any more time on just the
introduction side here um
let's go for the first question here so
there is a clear willingness and why
political support in the european union
come up with the highest and most
outstanding
standards when we talk about tech
regulations uh the eu has introduced
also as
part of the beginning the digital
service act and of course also digital
market act in a way
so to start with what are the three most
essential problems
these regulations are able to solve and
i would actually start with oliver um so
all the way for you
oh thank you thank you very much and
thank you thank you for the invite
um well the the two so we have two texts
that you just said
and one is about uh
keeping a market fair open
competitive and prone to innovation that
is the digital market act
because you know the accelerating
digitization of society
and and the economy has created a
situation where a few very large
platforms control very important
ecosystems
and they can deploy what we call network
effects very
very quickly um so they have emerged as
gatekeepers as we call them which means
that they control
uh the access of their markets but also
neighboring and adjacent markets
by their competitors so you know in a
world they they can act as private rule
makers
and of course uh that's not good that's
not good for
innovation in particular uh so that's
that's the the first set of
perturbations
and that mainly the digital market act
now
the digital uh services act
is everything that is not strictly
speaking competition of course it's
linked to competition
but it's not it's not competition trade
on exchange of
illegal goods services and content
online
is the misuse of services online by
manipulative algorithmic systems
to amplify the spread of this
information uh
et cetera so a number of new challenges
uh
and the way uh platforms should address
them
uh with an effort to responsibilize uh
the platform so that
uh uh actually are uh are
are key to into uh having a safer better
uh uh internet and of course an
additional challenge
is uh uh to keep the regulations
flexible
that uh keeps innovation uh uh going
and is future proof uh in order to
create a stable
unpredictable regulatory environment
that is necessary for firms
so thank you for the overview and and
the same question actually i would ask
for one or so
all the way to new york right now uh
what are the problems that we're solving
by
by implementing these regulations
uh so thank you annette and delighted to
be here so i think i completely agree
with how
olivier described the core of these
proposals
but maybe just to elaborate that there
are a couple of existing
problems that we have had in enforcing
regulations in the eu
against these tech companies and these
new proposed regulations are meant to
resolve them so first problem is that
these investigations that the commission
has taken to date
against companies such as google they
take a long time
and the markets are moving very fast so
here we are giving new tools
to the eu regulators to ex-ante
intervene with a more regulatory
approach so the idea is that we can be
much more effective
in targeting these problems before they
really get
entrenched in the marketplace so that
they're very hard to
reserve reverse um so that's one thing
the second problem that we have dealt
with
is that often regulation targets
differently
large companies and and small companies
in terms of their effect
so something that might be very feasible
for a large tech company
to comply with can be very burdensome
for small and medium-sized companies
that was one of the criticisms of the
general data
protection regulation that in many ways
it was only entrenching
the power of big tech because they were
the companies that were able to afford
to comply
so now with the dsa and the dma
the regulatory approach is distinctly
asymmetrical
meaning we are giving more burden some
applications to companies
that are able to comply with them and
that also have a greater impact in the
marketplace
thank you for for your responses for
here hendrick do you
want to add something as well look i
think uh
both anu and olivier have been you know
correct and clear in their explanations
of what
both the dsa and the dna are trying to
solve in terms of problems uh from a
technical perspective
um you know one one thing that i would
add it's clear that the european
commission believes that
uh there's a market access problem that
needs to be solved in digital markets
and that uh large platform owners
are creating bottlenecks for smaller
digital firms to access the marketplace
there are quote unquote gatekeepers
and you know i think that this may be
true to a certain extent for certain
gatekeepers
uh for certain operators of uh digital
platforms
for others uh i find it more difficult
to to see as a real problem uh
if you take the example of the company
that i work for apple
we operate a large platform called the
app store
we have 1.8 million apps on the app
store
and you know part of our business model
is to ensure that we have as many as
uh quality apps that are safe secure and
privacy
uh centric applications on our app store
because
it will make our devices more successful
and we'll have better consumer
experience and richer experience if we
have more apps so
you know for for for some of those uh
objectives the problems for my
perspective
certainly for a company perspective
apple it's
are less or less are less realistic and
then what i would also add if i can i
think
also there's an underlying political
problem
that europe is trying to address which
is by by setting
the global standard the ambition of
setting the global standard for platform
regulation
i think uh europe wants to try to
contribute to achieving greater digital
sovereignty
uh because if it if it is able to set
the global standard
it means that others will have to comply
with that standard
and that therefore european values that
are included
in those in those european uh
regulations will be
will be decided uh in europe and and and
so decisions will be not taken
outside of europe so i think there's
this underlying political objective as
well
yeah we're going to come back to that
whether the rest of the world is going
to be
uh taking over the regulations by the
european union as well a little later
but i would actually continue with you
hendrick here because uh i have a
question especially regarding your
representing
apple here so we know that the big debt
companies face yearly checks on how they
are tackling
illegal content under the new rules by
the european commission in a way
and and right and different kind of
large fines and breakups are threatening
uh in case big their companies are known
compliance
and in case of companies refused to buy
um they could have
to hand over up to 10 percent of their
turnover
as a representative rapport and could
you eva evaluate
the impressiveness of these measures
well you know let me let me start by
saying that of course
you know fines and remedies whether
they're structural or behavioral
remedies are
of course very important factors uh
that will contribute without a doubt to
achieving the stated goals of those
regulations but they're not
novel features i mean competition law
today
allows for the ability to impose fines
to impose these types of remedies
privacy legislation as well to a lesser
extent but
you still have enforcement mechanisms uh
and so the dsa and the dma in particular
also have enforcement mechanisms and
fines which is
not very uh novel what i think the the
real novelty
uh lies in the dma the digital markets
act which proposes
an ex ante approach uh it basically
stands for the proposition
uh that uh certain conduct uh
by platforms uh is is illegal uh
and it creates basically a shortcut for
public authorities
to decide which one should be allowed
and which one shouldn't be allowed i
mean the traditional approach is that
one should first determine that uh a
company has significant market power
uh that it has durable market power
dominance that allows its to
you know operate to a significant extent
independently from its
consumers and customers you know public
authorities won't have to do that
anymore under the dma
uh secondly uh there won't be a need to
determine whether or not the conduct in
question
uh constitutes uh you know or risks
excluding competitors
uh or or abusing uh consumers
or exploiting consumers that's you know
a given that's predetermined and last
but not least it certainly
does not require the public authorities
to determine whether they're
countervailing
justifications or efficiencies economic
efficiencies or non-economic
efficiencies that would
warrant in specific cases not
uh imposing specific obligations and so
that's really the novelty and it really
stands for the proposition
uh and at that uh you know legislators
because it's now in the hands of the
legislators that legislators have gained
sufficient
knowledge which is experienced in these
complex diverse and very dynamic markets
that they can actually in advance codify
which behavior is appropriate which
behavior is not appropriate and i find
that
you know a a um a a a
a difficult working hypothesis so i'll
stop there thank you
okay thank you um but but speaking of
from the citizens
perspective here uh a survey released in
the year of 2019
um stated that 74 of the european
citizens would want to know more
how their data is used by social media
platforms when they access
other websites uh concerns over the data
and its protection has grown drastically
in recent years that's what we all know
here
um how has the european commission
addressed these trends and i would ask
this question from oliver
well thank you well let me first maybe
react to what rick just said
um so that will make it a bit more fun i
mean uh
it just describes the difference between
competition law and uh
and regulatory policy i mean there's the
the
the very essence of of an exante
regulation
in particular in consumer protection
field or
fair trading is that you you tell
companies what they can
not do uh and in this case what they
cannot do
uh is actually that's why there is a
relatively limited list of
of things they cannot do and it's based
on 20 years of
decision practice of the commission and
the case laws of the
uh uh okay sorry uh
cases in the in court uh so this
these are practices from which we know
that when they are implemented
by uh large platforms with a gatekeeper
function
are invariably detrimental to to
consumers
uh so from the point of view of citizens
that is quite that is quite relevant
uh for for the rest uh
there is a common understanding around
the world that there is a need for
uh balanced regulation that ensures that
citizens and business
can benefit equally from the
opportunities offered by the digital
economy and
we did not yet address the draft bills
that are
now in front of the us congress because
to take to borrow the there was a
hendrick i guess the congress also
felt confident enough to be able to to
table quite far-reaching proposal and in
some ways
more far-reaching than what we have
proposed
here in uh in europe uh the protection
of users privacy
for example key principle it has guided
action over the past years in the gdpr
and it is true that to a large extent
for the gdpr we have
set a global standard but
that's not the objective the objective
now our objective is not to rule the
world
uh maybe others have this objective but
that's not ours our objective
is to protect our citizens
uh and uh have a legal system
which offers the digital ecosystems the
opportunity to grow
innovate uh while respecting uh
european uh value
so and that's what we're trying to do
here we're trying to complement
the existing framework data protection
laws for example transparency
applications on
deep consumer profiling will help inform
gdpr enforcement
whereas mandatory opt-out for data
combination across
core platform services supplements the
existing level of protection under the
gdpr
so you have a lot of cross uh
relationship
with uh are here to actually address
very deep concerns uh as your
paul showed within within eu citizens
yeah thanks for thanks for bringing it
up also the
comparison to regarding the gdpr
regulations as well because we know that
thanks to gdpr regulations which was
already
introduced in the year 2018 the u.s
citizens had
a stronger right to decide what big debt
companies can do with their
information and personal data and and
this also inspired by many other
lawmakers from all across the words to
make changes in their systems as well
we have a couple of examples regarding
from brazil from australia
and this also has raised the strongest
discussions
on a data protection in the u.s and as
anu you are based in new york city um do
you think that the same effect would
also happen
uh this time with the dsa and and the uh
the
uh dma uh regulations as well uh the
different lawmakers from other countries
uh
are going to make some changes in their
systems too
yeah so let's uh be clear on uh how the
eu has been so effective
in making the gdpr the global standard
and i agree with olivier that it is not
for the
intention to rule the world the eu has
been very confident in laying out a
regulatory approach that serves
the european citizens and internet users
and at the same time when doing so
when it has been regulating the
companies and their privacy standards
these companies have made
a voluntary decision in line with their
business interests
often to extend the european rule across
their global
practices so in that sense only
by regulating the single market the eu
has been able to sit back
and let the companies then transpose the
european standard across the global uh
marketplace so
that's why apple has the european gdpr
as its global privacy standard the same
goes for google
facebook microsoft so whether this would
then
happen uh in the dma and dsa context
i would say that there are many reasons
why i would expect at least
partial brussels effect to touch these
regulations as well
first of all the world in which the eu
is now introducing these regulations has
shifted already towards the european
norms
so compared to the time when the gdpr
was released i think there was
less of a refined understanding around
the world
how much these companies business models
depend
on data often very privacy infringing
ways of gaining access to data tracking
their consumers
online and compromising in many ways the
personal
uh autonomy and and privacy of the
individuals
so there's a lot more willingness to to
focus on what the eu is doing with the
understanding that the eu
is uh often the trailblazer and the one
with the most ambitious standard
and with the capacity then to often set
the standards globally
so i think there are the companies are
watching what the eu is doing
also considering when it is in their
entrance
uh to implement any of the changes
uh caused by the dma and dsa across the
global marketplace
but then we also have foreign
governments who are increasingly
responding to the demand of these
citizens
to also offer a more robust regulatory
framework so i think we will see this at
two levels
we will see some of these practices by
the corporations
big tech companies to be implemented
globally there will be more
accountability
more algorithmic transparency but we
will also see the governments in
different parts of the world
including in the united states the
conversation is really
shifting in the u.s when it comes to the
harms of the big tech
and the need for the regulators to be
more interventionist
so i also see much more demand on the
u.s side
to start following the european
regulatory approach
and thank you i know um now now
switching over to
a topic of regulating ai which was also
one of the topics of our conversation
here today
we know that the european commission is
also working on a plan of regulating the
use of ai
more and more tech companies and also
some of the states also
where i come from estonia is using ai
solutions
ai based solutions technology already
for
quite some time for offering services to
the customers and and also the citizens
aspect
um do you think that the new rules in
regulating the use of ai
are some ways stopping the innovation
and and most of these regulations are
not even being fully approved yet
aren't we a little bit too late already
by regulating the use of ai
in in some of the places maybe the
question could be for oliver
yeah well thank you um well too early or
too late it's
uh it's always the problem of every
regulator
uh too early stifle innovation too late
uh damage might have happened uh so that
that's that's always
an issue but the reason why we're
putting rules in place uh for new
technologies is
is to tackle any concerns but also
in terms of business opportunities
mistrust that people might have
and you know once the mistress is there
uh it becomes very difficult to regain
the confidence of
of the consumers it's also good for
people uh that's my message
uh i will also we want also to give
clarity and predictability
um to to to all involved and in
particular companies
so ai is no doubt a strategic technology
it involves tremendous opportunities but
some of its uses
pose very specific risks uh that
relate to the application of various eu
rules
designed to ensure safety designed to
protect fundamental rights and value
so with this initiatives what we we want
to do
is try to ensure that ai is developed
and used in a
legal framework with the overall goal to
stimulate the tech up
of trustworthy ai in in our single
market
so concretely the proposed uh the
proposal
proposes limited or no regulation for ai
systems
when they pose minimal or no risk and
that is the case for the overwhelming
majority
but the proposal bans uh systems that
pose an ex
unacceptable risks uh for example toys
using voice assistance
that encourage dangerous behavior of
minors of miners sorry
or systems that allow social scoring by
governments
this will be banned in the in the in the
eu
and and we also plan to impose strict
requirements
on systems that pose a high risk uh let
me just take an example
ai application in robot assisted surgery
well i i think we have a duty to to to
impose extra safety
on uh on this type of uh of
application so of course there is more
than one way to get
uh to get the balance right but this is
really about
getting the balance right between
building trust
and increasing uptake on the one hand uh
versus
fostering innovation on the other hand
and uh
we believe we we struck the the best
balance we could
do but whatever a follow-up question to
you as well here is that do you think
that we should
raise awareness of ai in the european
union in a way because we have had these
discussions a lot because people
mistake the eai still like even in the
year of 2001
uh 2021. so do you think we should have
any kind of uh
i don't know projects or initiatives
again uh to raise the public awareness
of the ai
well i don't know i mean i think people
people have a pretty good idea what ai
is
um i'm not sure how successful an
awareness freezing campaign
would be i mean i i think
generally what the average citizens
wants and wants to benefit from all the
uh
uh increased wealth and choice and
quality of new services that it uh
involves but it doesn't want this
privacy
uh to be to be to be at stake or at
least not
in a way that is sort of kind of
involuntary
and he certainly wants that obligations
that are
life-risking or potentially go against
core criminal regulations are either
banned or strictly controlled i think
this is
this is the debates we we must uh have
rather than a generic debate on what
ai is thank you um
we have already received a couple of
questions also from our audience and i
would encourage everyone
uh you have a chance to ask questions or
if anybody here in the room wants to ask
a question raise your hand
you will be welcome to you to join us
here um so one of the questions that
is kind of interesting that we have
received from uh from someone from our
listeners today
uh when and why the european union wants
to regulate mobile phone uh
manufacturers to implement
one common usb charger cable for every
brand
who wants to to go and answer that
oliver you uh hendrik well i have no
idea
i i just recall i died of general for
competition but i'm happy to ask my
colleague in charge of standardization
henrik any comments from that no i think
there have been calls in the european
union for
uh regulating uh the so-called common
charges for
mobile devices um you know i'm
not aware of what the latest statuses of
those
uh initiatives i would just add that i
think that it's the
you know an important role for
policymakers
and legislators is to set out what the
objectives ought to be
for manufacturers in terms of achieving
environmental standards environmental
footprints
but i would caution against politicians
and regulators and legislators to decide
which specific technology manufacturers
should be using
in the marketplace i think these are
decisions that are better left to
engineers and and market participants uh
but again i'm
i frankly i'm not sure what the uh what
the current status is of
of of the proposal and i know that there
are people that are thinking about
introducing these types of proposals so
i'll stop
thank you um so there's another question
from uh from our
uh one of our um our listeners anyway
um so will the will the newly uh created
standards uh contractual clauses be a
sufficient tool for comply
with the conclusions of streams too
who would like to take that one here
any comments from i know oliver
well i don't know i talked a lot so
maybe i knew and then i'm happy to
compliment a few words
i am happy to weigh in and just to
remind of the listeners who may not be
familiar with the ins and outs of the
history of the data transfers between
the united
states and the eu is that there has been
a a specific agreement negotiated by the
u.s and the eu government to facilitate
the
data flows and to respond to the
concerns that the europeans have
that the americans don't sufficiently
guarantee
the protection of the privacy of the
european data
but these uh agreements negotiated have
been invalidated not just once by but
twice by the the highest european court
so we have a tremendous pressure to find
a way to
restore those data flows that are
fundamentally important for both
the united states and uh the european
economy
but i will i i would be too quick to try
to conclude that now
something is sufficient because the
history shows that the european court
will hold these agreements
to an extremely high standard but what
we do see that there is a political
agreement both
in the u.s and the the eu that something
needs to be done the negotiations have
been accelerated
and there's a genuine attempt to find a
solution that both
serves their dire business needs but
also
take seriously uh the fundamental rights
uh protections
nobody wants a third case from the
european court of justice that yet again
will invalidate those data flows there's
enough legal uncertainty
but i am optimistic that given the
importance of these issues
it will be elevated in salience and
priority
thank you anna um so so moving over
here so it has been discussed uh very
widely uh why most of the global
giants have not chosen european union
are you as as their home market has it
anything to do with regulations or
what's the reason
why the very big tech companies have not
chosen the european union astr
home in a way maybe hendrick you would
like to take that one
sure so um i
i don't think uh regulation
is a key factor as to why there are
virtually no uh
successful global tech players that are
of european origin
um i mean it probably plays the role but
frankly
you know the reality is that today
digital technology is changing our lives
it's changing our society
and so let me be very clear i think it's
totally legitimate and appropriate and
necessary
for policymakers regulators legislators
to make sure that
that they have the right tools
instruments that are fit for purpose
to ensure that their citizens and their
companies can leverage the opportunities
of of uh digital technologies and
protect them from the risk
that sometimes derives from digital
technology so
there's as such and of itself i think
nothing
uh inappropriate uh or abnormal
on the contrary to wanting to make sure
that there's regulation in place
the the difficulty is making sure that
the regulation is the right regulation
that's appropriate regulation and
and i think if you want to you know
export regulation as a rulemaker you
want to make sure that
it does uh protect consumer it does
protect privacy rights
and uh the dma in this respect i think
is uh
is open to criticism as it's being
proposed having said that
uh what makes uh companies
decide to uh invest
in in a specific country to become a
global
player i think these are uh you know
very
uh critical uh questions and you know i
can think of a number one number one is
access to venture capital and in order
to have access to venture capital you
have to have very well functioning
capital markets i think the european
union needs to work on that
secondly uh investment uh
europe is working on investment we have
a an unprecedented 750 billion
recovery plan 20 of it 30 of it is
dedicated to
to digital which is great thirdly
digital skills
there's a huge digital skills gaps that
europe can address
and last but not least i think europe
needs to continue to working on the
digital single market and this is where
regulation can play a very positive role
in
eliminating barriers to trade and
investment that exists as a result of
different legal regimes in europe
and so in a way regulation can help
innovation can help also ensuring that
uh uh digital players in europe become
more successful on a global basis
uh also i would pull up the same
question to either how to get
european uh how to get very big debt
companies
to set up their headquarters to europe
how do you attract
uh um like the big companies
to me yes okay
well first of all i agree entirely with
what enriquez said
um well and it's not a question of
attracting really i mean you know
people tends to establish where they're
from
so if your steep job why on earth would
you incorporate
april in the eu were you very fine in
california and you have everything you
need you have indeed the capital markets
you have
uh the skills you have the working
capital
you have everything in it so the
question
for for the for the eu is how do you
uh create the conditions
that make that the the next apple will
be european
and uh it's not so much a question of
innovation
because we do have innovation but the
problem is that when these innovators
need to move to the higher scale
they do not find the financing so risk
capital venture capital and that's why
we have
launched this capital market union
project in europe
uh that that didn't go fast enough and
they're still not going fast enough
uh it is because when the uh uh
the companies these innovators needs to
reach the capital mass
to to become true world players well
they usually cross the atlantic because
this is where they get financed
i mean moderna take vaccines moderna is
a great successory of the us
except it's a bunch of marseille france
based scientists but when they needed 5
billion
the only place on earth where they could
find it was in the u.s so they moved to
the u.s
very good for the u.s very bad for us
spotify
and you would have many other success
stories
like this and this is because at some
point you need to go where you find the
capital to finance you
skills of course very important as well
and all the other factors that uh
that uh eric mentioned regulation
in my view definitely not a deterrent
uh one really well used actually
an attractivity factor in my view thank
you
um we have received a question from
lucia on our
um like up and in slido
so will the eu and u.s with all the
strong regulations be able to compete
with global powers such as china
given the fact then this uh disclosure
that uh
data is the new oil
what i know
i just want to mention the earlier
conversation by olivia and hendrick was
fundamentally important so if i could
just add one more dimension to that
because this idea that we're always
speeding regulation
as being uh can it be an enabler for
innovation or is it really an enemy of
innovation i think it can be a very
harmful conversation
so i just want to reinforce the
important message that henrik and
olivier
were saying of the importance of
understanding that if we can through
regulation
create a more robust and harmonized
digital single market
we have a very different foundation for
innovation but what we do need
is an integrated capital markets you
need to be able to raise the funds to
grow those innovations and that is
absolutely a key
and then to pick up on one thing and i
think it feeds a little bit to the next
question as well
olivia say the innovators normally
establish where they come from
but think about where do these big tech
executive giants come from
so if you think about steve jobs is a
son of a syrian immigrant
jeff bezos is a second generation cuban
sergey brin
is from russia elon musk is from south
africa it is not all homegrown talent in
the united states
so europe also needs to be the magnet
for talent and the destination that
attracts the best minds and innovators
and i would use that as a segway to this
great question that we got from the
audience
is that who wins these races is where
that innovation where the best minds
want to
migrate to and want to innovate and in
many ways
america has been the place that has
generated the ecosystem
the universities the capital markets
that they're being welcoming of migrants
um that many ways the eu needs to
replicate those
first of all but then to be able to
compete against china
i think there was a wonderful line at
some point when the eu
got some pressure the commission from
france and germany that we would need to
turn towards industrial policy to better
compete with china
and commissioner festark has said that
look let the chinese be chinese
we would be lousy chinese they are much
better at it
and ultimately that would be the most
dangerous path
for the eu to take is to choose
protectionism build a fortress europe
turned this idea of digital sovereignty
that hendrick was talked
uh talked about to this kind of
instrumental protectionism
that will not be a path to victory but
the eu needs to assert itself
true to its values because it is really
offering a
different path than china is absolutely
uh
disrespectful of the fundamental rights
of uh individual users and that is the
price of the chinese model
and the europeans cannot and should not
and will not replicate that
and in many ways even americans in this
race
are second-guessing now these kind of
techno-libertarian foundations of
american success
and our understanding that ultimately
regulation needs to be part of that
so in many ways i think the eu is on the
right track with the values
underlying the european model of the
digital economy
if it remains mindful of some of these
other issues
like the capital markets completing the
digital single market
i'm sorry it was a lengthy answer but
the question was just very um
important i thought so thank you for
that thank you thank you for a very
insightful answer here too oliver you
want to add something as well
no can we move to the next one you know
including the quotation of uh
margaret vegeta yes so
all right we also have received another
question from the audience
by romana who has asked that how the
digital services act package may affect
the future
do you think that this could eliminate
some internet threats as well
henrik maybe no i'm i mean
that it goes without saying this is the
objective the the goal of the
the dsa is to increase responsibility
for
digital players as to the content that
they put online uh
it increased also legal certainty for
digital players to ensure that the
digital single market works well and i'm
sure that
uh there's a number of very important
guiding principles in the
in the proposed dsa that will form a
blueprint
for other jurisdictions other countries
around the world to follow it that goes
without saying and
you know i i can just add that you know
from my perspective working for apple
you know this is something that we're
very familiar with because we have a
curated approach
towards putting content online we have
you know actual human beings that
vet third-party applications before we
put them online to make sure that they
are legal
safe secure and and don't infringe on
the privacy rights of our users
um so i i'm hopeful that it will
uh i think you know it's certainly you
know nothing is ever perfect in any
proposal that so there's
always room for improvement but
generally speaking i'm convinced that it
would make
a change and by the way if i can pick up
on the previous question
i also think this is something that is
being looked at in the united states and
i
therefore think that some type of
transatlantic cooperation
on these issues is of extreme importance
because
the united states and europe do share a
lot of values
that perhaps other regions of the world
do not share to the same extent
and so you know if we want to be
successful
if we want to be successful promoting
protecting the prosperity of our
citizens
i think the europeans but also the
americans will be much better off if
they work together
uh in in establishing these principles
and the rules that will flow from those
principles
absolutely fully agree with you on the
last point regarding uh transcent
lattice also
uh collaboration um as we just have one
and a half minutes left here um so as
the very last con
concluding point here a question to
everybody and i i would
ask a very short answer for that um so
is the europe european approach is it
visionary or is it killing helpful
innovation
let's start from annual and just with
the one sentence
as a conclusion i think i was pretty uh
lengthy in my earlier answer that it is
both visionary
and it is not killing innovation but
there are still components that need to
be put in place
in order to translate that vision into
tangible for
success so i would call for more
ambition
and more integrated capital markets more
foreign talent and
uh maybe that's a good one to start
oliver your last night
you're very very same as i knew i will
add more
more cooperation between universities
and business
i mean it's it's really not the core
that is or the vision that is at stake
it's it's all the ecosystem and it's
something that you build
through small steps here and there that
makes that
uh i mean innovation takes place in in a
region or it doesn't
uh companies grow in that region or that
or they do not
it's many many things and it has to do
with capital it has to do with skills
it has to do with everything that makes
a successful company uh
um and the regulation is there as an
enabler but if you don't have the rest
it doesn't work
and closing remarks from hendrick
i don't think it's uh i think it would
be overstating
uh that it's visionary i think you know
europe is doing what's legitimately and
should be doing which is to
you know protect and promote the
interests and the prosperity of its
citizens
i don't would call that visionary i
would also don't think that the
regulation will
kill innovation i agree with olivier but
there are aspects in the proposals that
would reduce
uh trust in the system that will reduce
privacy protections that would reduce
safety and security
and you need trust to innovate if people
stop
having trust in ecosystems uh you know
people will be more reluctant to try new
new new features to download new apps
and so i think you know
it's very important that legislators
today and i'm crossing my fingers that
they will
internalize that the the proposals are
not perfect and that there's room for
improvement to
to maintain that trust to promote and
and and encourage further innovation
yeah
thank you thank you everyone thanks for
the panelists and thanks for uh for
people that has joined us here in the
room
and also virtually um so i do hope that
that was interesting panel for you to
listen to and then there is definitely
some improvement made by by like making
this entire approach more visionary
and attracting more companies to you to
start their business here
in in europe but now uh for information
as well here so coming up in the next
five minutes here in the same room
we have a session called climate change
and global security
a closer relationship than one might
think
and then in another room in maria
theresa stage there is a session cities
in lock town
with representatives of the cities of
bratislava budapest and
prague so thank you for my side and i
wish you a very nice day
thank you
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you