Letter to Henna Virkkunen in anticipation of Parliament hearings next week

We hope this letter finds you well. This is not another letter about specific regulations we would like to see you address. Instead, it is a hopeful yet, we hope, modest enough call to adhere to the realistic, pragmatic, and long-vision principles in your work that most EU consumers anticipate. 

We wish you the best of success in the upcoming Parliament hearings and hope you can achieve tangible results that will foster much-needed greater trust - in policymakers, in ourselves as Europeans, and in the EU as a whole.

Finding a balance is one of the most important and never an easy task for policymakers. Europe currently stands at a crossroads, having to make the best of both worlds - preserving its core values while ensuring that the EU remains (and, in some cases, becomes) globally competitive. Preserving our values and becoming more competitive needs not only regulatory guardrails and financial support for the innovators but also space and freedom to act - to innovate, to experiment, and lastly - to risk and be brave. 

Consumer-oriented policies need to be balanced too - it is within consumers’ interests to not only be protected by a regulatory safety net but also have the ability to access the most innovative products and technologies possiblewhile our businesses are not stripped away from possibilities they find across the Atlantic or elsewhere in the world. 

All of this should be done while ensuring that the administrative burden on Europe’s businesses is reduced and that our business and innovation climate supports achievers. Fighting fire with fire - in this case, attempting to cut red tape through adding potentially more complex layers of administrative processes might not work as well as intended if not complemented by a guiding principle - being cautious about unintended consequences of new regulatory ideas. Shooting for the moon, hoping to land among the stars, is not a good guiding principle for policymakers. It doesn’t foster trust in democratic processes or the EU for either consumers or innovators.

Europeans understand that you have difficult tasks ahead. 

Despite your personal views, the EU and the Commission are large, democratic ecosystems with many initiatives already far along in the pipeline. Moving away from the status quo and incorporating new ideas will be challenging. Trying to find a balance between the European tech and telecom communities, which reflect the diversity of the EU itself (many conflicting ideas and dozens of outspoken advocates on all sides), is not going to be easy either. Finding a middle ground without preconceived biases based on origin or form of expression will be important. Keeping in mind the interests of consumers should not be forgotten too. 

We hope you can bring a rational and careful approach to the EU's regulatory supermachine, where new regulatory ideas will not become "ends in themselves" and they actually improve business climate, not make it “equally difficult” for everybody.  Many have previously asked the Commission and the Parliament to prioritize the implementation of existing regulations over introducing new ones. We listened to Draghi discuss overregulation, we read the Commission’s President's plans to reduce administrative burden, and we saw Letta acknowledge the challenges faced by public administrations. You are well aware that adapting to new regulations poses challenges not only for businesses (both large and small) via compliance or limited innovation potential, but also for Member States’ public administrations via transposition and implementation, particularly in countries with smaller bureaucracies. The final payer for the increased burden on both bureaucracy and business is always the consumer - either through increased prices or local administrations’ having to shift their focus from local needs - digital transformation or not.   

We hope you are brave enough to pave the way to reciprocal and stronger Transatlantic tech partnership despite calls for protectionism disguised as sovereignty. As a Finn, you understand the importance of good (and challenging) neighborly relations, as well as the fragility of Europe’s values, economic stability, and territorial integrity in the face of global challenges ignited by bad actors. The Commission's efforts to seek sovereignty from high-risk vendors are commendable, yet our economic interdependence with the US must be assessed rationally. While the EU is right to seek a more balanced trade relationship with the US, Europe should remain realistic about its dependence on the US in areas we cannot change easily and quickly. Tech policy, among other issues, is a vital component of this reciprocal relationship. Americans and Europeans are not enemies, and it's high time policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic switched their focus to fighting real threats instead and looking for ways to complement, not compete with each other.

We hope you contribute to making Europeans more proud of the EU. The legacy of your predecessor, Thierry Breton - both positive and negative - still lingers, and the EU should strive to reinvent itself in the eyes of Europeans as a Union that excels not only at regulation but is also good at fostering (tangible) innovation and (tangible) economic growth. We understand that politically charged comments are usually somewhat hyperbolic for stylistic purposes and that results need time. Nevertheless, we believe that all Europeans - startups, consumers, SMEs, scale-ups, unicorns, potential decacorns, innovators, and others - wish for a reset in how the Commission communicates and discusses its initiatives to rebuild trust in the EU.