Stakeholder Engagement in EU Digital Platform Regulations: Ways Forward and Persisting Gaps

The chapter questions whether the issued European digital platform regulations can be inscribed in the newly emerging sustainable business paradigm and be considered an example of corporate digital responsibility norms regarding digital platforms in the European legal system. More precisely, the analysis tests two different hypotheses: (i) to which extent EU digital platform regulations address corporate digital sustainability interests; and (ii) whether the considered regulations employ, as a regulatory technique, co-regulation mechanisms leveraging on stakeholder engagement capacities for the attainment of the relevant interests. To these ends, the study first identifies the “digital sustainability” interests underlying the considered regulations, detecting the stakeholders that would have a legitimate claim for engagement in view of the declared regulatory objectives. Then it illustrates the codified tools for stakeholder-driven co-regulation within digital platforms’ public and private ordering spheres. Conclusions will highlight persistent downsides and gaps of the assessed stakeholders’ participatory spaces in the digital platform ecosystem.