“Now the dust has settled…” – IAB UK’s Yves Schwarzbart on what Euro Election results mean for digital advertising

Every five years the European political merry-go-round comes to a standstill and awaits its next spin as a fresh intake of MEPs and a newly appointed European Commission temporarily burst the “Brussels bubble”. In this process political battles over the future direction of the EU unsurprisingly move up the media’s agenda. In the UK the 2014 edition famously featured Cameron vs Juncker and Farage vs the “political establishment” with a potential in-out referendum in 2017 constantly looming on the horizon.

The result has been “business as unusual” for the EU with Eurosceptic parties rocking the European Parliament elections and national leaders showing unprecedented disunity over the appointment of the new President of the union’s executive arm. But now that the fog has – at least partially – been lifted on the who’s who of the new European political landscape, our focus should switch to what this could mean for digital advertising.

The EU’s number one priority

On the surface the new EU leadership – personified in Commission President in waiting, Jean-Claude Juncker – sends a vital message: the digital economy is Europe’s future growth engine and leveraging the power of data its fuel. Juncker unmistakably says: “we must [make] use of the great opportunities of digital technologies which know no borders.”

As true as this statement is, a borderless world cannot function without rules. And this is where we come back to the proposed data protection reforms. The European Commission recently called these “the regulatory backbone” for Europe’s future (data-driven) economy.

Make no mistake, the reforms present one of the most significant policy opportunities of recent times. Striking a harmonious balance between a strong level of protection and accountability for citizens, whilst allowing room for companies to experiment responsibly with data, is the key objective.

This is why getting the reforms right is a crucial task given it is only a matter of time before digital has permeated all strands of the economy and society. Get them wrong and the EU runs the risk of creating the very barriers that it should be so keen to avoid. And of those we still see many in the various versions of the proposals that continue to circulate within the European institutions, despite considerable improvements in many areas.

A new “digital” European Union?

What the reform process on new data protection rules has laid bare is that there is an obvious lack of even a basic understanding about digital among a number of influential European policymakers. However, with 51 per cent of elected MEPs new to the European Parliament and a new-look European Commission set to be appointed soon, there is an opportunity to address this glaring weakness. Add to that a growing voting population that live and breathe digital and “digital native” is a term many policymakers will be keen to put on their lapel.

Recognising this trend, Liberal Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake has raised the idea of creating a European Parliament Committee devoted entirely to Digital Affairs and Technology. According to her vision, this would be first port of call for future policy debates around net neutrality, European copyright laws, Connected TV and many more digital issues that will take centre stage in the chamber in the coming years. Digital has so far been a fragmented issue in the Parliament divided between multiple committees. Centralising digital policy questions is therefore an interesting idea, although any move in this direction would have to be carefully balanced against the significant risk of thinking in silos.

So there are still many open questions, not least around the UK’s influence in Europe in times when many EU Member States may ponder on the UK’s commitment to the EU. However, one thing is clear: the European Union’s eighth legislative term promises to put digital at the heart of the European policy agenda. Interesting times ahead for our industry.

Yves Schwarzbart is Regulatory Affairs manager at IAB UK.