Derecho Digital en la Unión Europea: Techlaw y mercado único digital en la década 2010-2020

Alberto Hidalgo Cerezo

Keywords

Digital Law

Abstract

2019 marked 10 years since the beginning of the Digital Single Market strategy promoted by the European Union. In 2009, Mario Monti designed a plan to adapt community legislation to the new digital environment during the 2010-2020 decade, whose economic potential was estimated at 500,000,000,000 euros. As part of this comprehensive strategy, Directives and Regulations have been promulgated with a direct impact on the exploitation of the Digital Market in the European Union, and new rights, born as a result of the digital revolution, have been reinforced and introduced.
The European Commission and Parliament have issued more than 30 provisions in a decade, which directly affect the operations that companies and consumers carry out over the internet. This work reviews more than 15 rules (provision of digital content, net neutrality, geoblocking, content portability, intellectual property, data protection, free circulation of non-personal data, European Electronic Communications Code, …), as well as references to lege ferenda, Communications and Proposals, such as ePrivacy, blockchain or robotics and artificial intelligence, essential for the completion of the Digital Single Market in short and medium term.
The author believes that there is a common line that connects all of them: placing the citizen (frequently, consumer and user in the online environment) at the center of legislative action. This work seeks not only to synthesise the analysis of the main rules, but also to analise their effects from the point of view of the common user. The digital revolution of the 21^st century must bring progress for all citizens' rights or, otherwise, it will not be a true progress.