How the European Union became a global first mover in regulating online platforms

The enactment of the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) turned the European Union into a regulator of online platforms. How did the EU become the global first mover in this field? To answer this question, this paper makes a twofold argument. First, the convergence of preferences of the three involved institutions, the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the EU as necessary condition. This convergence was enabled by a consensus on the risks online platforms can pose for EU citizens and the absence of strong European digital industry players. Second, the two acts built on initiatives and existing legislations from Commission presidencies reaching back to the early 2000s as sufficient condition. A path that started with fragmented internet governance in the early 2000s (Prodi), developed into the EU Digital Single Market with the Digital Agenda of 2010 (Barroso) and the Digital Single Market Strategy of 2015 (Juncker), and resulted in additional layering to regulate online platforms with the Digital Decade of 2020 (von der Leyen). This paper contributes to our understanding of EU digital policy-making. It provides an explanation of policy-change caused by the rise of online platforms in the EU Digital Single Market. This paper is one of the first empirical accounts that specifically investigates both legislative proposals of the new framework governance of online platform regulation in the EU. Evidence to support the case study is derived from official negotiation documentation and news outlets, such as Agence Europe. The findings are validated through stakeholder interviews, covering all three involved EU institutions, civil society organisations and representatives from the digital industry.