Council swiftly adopted its mandate for negotiating new rules for online platforms

Today, the Council of the EU adopted its mandate to negotiate the Commission’s proposal to make online platforms not only fairer but also more transparent for business users. On 26 April 2018, the Commission proposed an EU Regulation on fairness and transparency in online platform trading together with the creation of an EU Observatory to monitor current as well as emerging issues and opportunities in the digital economy.

Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Mariya Gabriel, and Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, Elżbieta Bieńkowska, welcomed this positive step: “This swift Council adoption is good news. Now is the time to provide ground rules for fairness, transparency, and better access to dispute resolution for business users of online platforms. The Platform-to-Business Regulation proposes a targeted and proportionate approach to promote trust, predictability and legal certainty in the online platform economy. Businesses such as hotels, traders selling online, app developers, and other similar companies that rely on search engines for attracting internet traffic to their websites are amongst those who will benefit from the new rules.” As next steps, the European Parliament will adopt its position before negotiations can start between co-legislators and pave the way for the regulation to be adopted in early 2019. This initiative delivers on the commitment made in President Juncker’s 2017 State of the Union address to safeguard a fair, predictable, sustainable and trusted business environment in the online economy. More information on the Commission’s proposal is available in this memo and factsheet.