Governance of Digitalization in Europe A contribution to the Exploration Shaping Digital Policy - Towards a Fair Digital Society? BertelsmannStiftung Study
Digital policy is a unique policy area. As a cross-cutting policy issue, it has an impact not only on individual areas
of regulation but on almost all other policy areas as well. Aspects of digital policy such as data regimes, cybersecurity
and standardization issues are relevant not only to the the future of the internet or 5G mobile communications
infrastructure, but to other areas of our lives to which they are closely linked, which range from automated driving
to digital assistance systems in education and healthcare to the digitalization of sectors such as agriculture and
construction. Nevertheless, regulation efforts have thus far been primarily sector-specific and national in their
scope. With a few exceptions, such as the EU’s controversial General Data Protection Regulation, there are few
digital policy frameworks in place for Europe that defines and integrates basic principles for broad application.
Instead, we face a situation in which a variety of approaches stand side by side, at times complementing each other
but also – all too often – competing with each other in ways that foster inconsistencies. The development of Europe’s
5G infrastructure is illustrative of this state of affairs. Despite the presence of what were originally uniform
objectives across Europe, 28 nationally distinct tendering procedures with different requirements have since
emerged. As a result, we must now find ways to manage the problems associated with having three or more networks
per country, high costs, a difficult debate over security and the threat of dependency on non-EU providers
