European Parliament passes digital single market resolution

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) today (19 January) passed a resolution which aims to boost the European digital single market. The EP’s recommendations, which were passed with a vote of 551 to 88 with 39 abstentions, call on the European Commission (EC) to issue proposals to:

• find innovative solutions on cross-border parcel delivery to improve services and lower costs,
• end unjustified geo-blocking practices, so as to improve EU consumers’ access to goods and services. MEPs welcome the proposal on cross-border portability of online content services “as a first step” in this direction,
• ensure equivalent and future-proof consumer protection, regardless of whether digital content is purchased online or offline,
• remove barriers to SMEs, start-ups and scale-ups and seize the opportunities based on new ICT technologies, such as Big Data, cloud computing, the Internet of Things or 3D-printing; an innovation-friendly policy towards online platforms (e.g. search engines, app stores) that facilitates market entry should be maintained, and
• review the ePrivacy directive to ensure consistency of its provisions with the new EU data protection rules.