Shaping Europe’s digital future: EU regulation and platform policies in the global disorder

The world is experiencing a digital revolution with profound effects for governing and democracy. Europe increasingly finds itself on the receiving end of developments driven by non-European actors but with momentous implications for Europe. Accordingly, and during the last decade, the European Union (EU) has embraced the digital agenda with the ambition of “shaping Europe’s digital future”. The roadmaps presented for making EU and its member states fit for the digital age require substantial public communication efforts to convince various stakeholders, including tech companies, governments of the member states, civil society and citizens, of the necessity to invest in new policies and regulatory actions. Such communications are often based on the commitment of protecting democratic values within and outside the EU. At the same time, EU institutions need to convincingly argue that their own regulatory actions respect basic principles such as transparency, accountability and constitutional rights and freedom. The Digital Services Act (2024) and the Artificial Intelligence Act (2024) introduced a comprehensive regulatory framework for online platforms, with a specific focus on platforms classified as Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs), imposing specific obligations to mitigate systemic risks and to address potentially disruptive effects of digital political communication. However, EU’s capacity for enforcement and ensuring accountability still largely depends on the voluntary cooperation of the platforms. The paper seeks to explore the conditions of (non) compliance of tech companies addressed by EU regulation. Special attention will be paid to the case of the regulation of political advertisement and fact-checking rules with wide implications for democracy in the member states and in the EU.