Organised with the support of the Slovenian Government Office for Digital Transformation. The Slovenian Government is the current President of the Council of the European Union.

Keynote

Peter Geršak

State Secretary, Office for Digital Transformation, Slovenian Government

State Secretary Peter Geršak will address questions from the speakers of the panel after his keynote.

Panel

Panel speakers are to be confirmed and will include representatives of the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the connectivity industry.

Moderator: Jennifer Baker, EU Correspondent.

Event topic

Building on the 2000 e-Commerce Directive, the Digital Services Act forms the foundational framework for the entire digital ecosystem and Europe’s digital economy going forward. This ecosystem includes a wide range of actors, from online platforms to connectivity providers that play a crucial role by providing trustworthy internet access.

Whilst mitigating the spread of illegal online content is one of the most pressing issues in our time, the legal framework must also guarantee certainty for internet intermediaries and safeguard the rights of internet users.

The proposed new rules for online platforms under the DSA need to be assessed in terms of their impact on these rights and their proportionality across the entire digital ecosystem.

Addressing these challenges in a platform world, the Digital Services Act needs to balance new due diligence rules & procedures around accountability, identification and removal of illegal content with protecting fundamental rights contained in the EU Charter and ECJ jurisprudence.

Enforcement of the DSA is raising significant discussion, with proponents of the incumbent country of origin approach, emphasising the creation of a digital services internal market. Other voices support a country of destination approach and a greater enforcement role by the Commission, to avoid a GDPR-like stagnation in swift and effective enforcement against online platforms.

Questions to the panel will include:

• How to best achieve a balanced set of illegal content mitigation obligations across the digital ecosystem: Risk-based approach versus General Risk Assessment?
• Is country of origin the best suited model to warrant effective enforcement of the DSA against online platforms?
• Which obligations are to be proportionally added to the incumbent conditional liability regime? Where should the line be drawn depending on whether or not intermediaries disseminate content to the public?
• What is the relevance of maintaining the horizontal nature of the DSA by streamlining illegal content mitigation versus adopting special regimes for certain kinds of illegal content?
• Should conditional liability be linked to compliance with due diligence measures?

About the GIGAEurope Presidency Event Series

The GIGAEurope EU Presidency Event Series provide a platform to the EU Presidency to share its priorities and opinions on Europe’s digital agenda. By doing so, the event series aim to contribute to the dialogue between the Presidency, industry and EU stakeholders.