The European Tech Alliance (EUTA) has submitted its response to the European Commission’s consultation on gold-plating, run by DG GROW.
Europe says it wants to empower its digital champions. That starts with a Single Market that actually works as one market. One market, one rulebook, one future. Today, European companies face the opposite: an EU framework, and then 27 national layers or interpretations on top of it.
Our submission documents, among others, 12 cases across 15 Member States, covering data protection, artificial intelligence, consumer protection, product rules, platform work, tax and payments. In each one, national authorities have gone beyond what EU law requires, either when transposing a Directive or when interpreting a Regulation that was meant to apply uniformly.
The pattern is consistent. A company cannot rely on a single EU-wide release. Products, price displays, review systems, accessibility statements and checkout flows have to be rebuilt country by country. Engineering and legal capacity that should go into new products goes into managing divergence instead. In several cases documented in our response, EUTA members chose not to launch a product or a feature at all.
The cost also falls unevenly. European-headquartered companies carry it, while very large international players headquartered outside the EU often sit beyond the reach of these national measures.
What should happen
- Harmonised enforcement. Coordinated enforcement within and across Member States and EU authorities, particularly on data protection, AI and consumer law.
- EU guidance that states the limits of national action. Guidance today explains what EU law requires. It should also say where the EU legislator has already struck the balance and national additions are not appropriate.
- Interpretation settled at EU level. Questions that affect the whole Single Market should be answered once, at EU level, not separately in each Member State. In data protection, that means the EDPB, with the capacity to take those questions.
- A stronger notification mechanism. Directive 2015/1535 has been a rather effective remedy. However, its value depends on Member States actually notifying drafts, which does not always happen.
- Gold-plating clauses in EU Directives, along the lines of Article 1(4) of the DAC Recast proposal.
The following can be attributed to EUTA’s Secretary General, Victoria de Posson
“European companies built their business on the promise of one market with one set of rules. That promise is not being kept. Most of the time a Member State adds its own layer on top of EU law, it is European companies that pay for it, because they are the ones trying to scale across all 27.“
“Simplification at EU level will not deliver if 27 national rulebooks keep growing underneath it. What’s needed: One market, one rulebook, one future.“
About the European Tech Alliance
EUTA represents leading European tech companies that provide innovative products and services to more than one billion users. Our 40 EUTA member companies from 16 European countries are popular and have earned the trust of consumers. As companies born and bred in Europe, for whom the EU is a crucial market, we have a deep commitment to European citizens and values.
With the right conditions, our companies can strengthen Europe’s resilience and technological autonomy, protect and empower users online, and promote Europe’s values of transparency, rule of law and innovation to the rest of the world.
The EUTA calls for boosting Europe’s tech competitiveness by having an ambitious EU tech strategy to overcome growth obstacles, making a political commitment to clear, targeted and risk-based rules, and enforcing rules consistently to match the globalised market we are in.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Victoria de Posson, EUTA Secretary General
E-mail: victoria@eutechalliance.eu
E-mail: info@eutechalliance.eu
Phone: +32 476 25 08 16
www.eutechalliance.eu
