Decrypting and Implementing the EU Data Strategy

Perhaps the most famous EU legislation in the digital policy field has been the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which, according to its proponents, has changed the way citizens and companies think about personal data and serves as an international benchmark for a trustworthy digital market, thus epitomising the ‘Brussels effect’. But data has a more general significance for the EU digital economy and society. Being able to control the wealth of data created by Europe's digital economy has become a question of sovereignty, closely interlinked with the digital transformation of the continent, and a key ingredient for Europe to lead in emerging technologies like AI. To analyse the importance of data in making the EU Digital Rulebook, it is thus not enough to look at law-making, but one must also examine how the Data Economy can flourish in the EU.