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It’s a thorn in the side of tech giants like Google: the EU’s planned “digital services law.” By lobbying, the group is trying to soften the law and has apparently gone too far.
By Stephan Ueberbach, ARD-Studio Brussels
It’s about a lot. For years, the EU has been targeting top US tech companies and fining billions for violating European competition rules. For example, Apple or Google. And times could soon be even tougher for the internet giants. Because the EU Commission wants to reduce the power of the big platforms.
More transparency, more competition, more diversity: that is the goal, which of course does not suit digital corporations. A huge campaign has been running in the background for weeks to dilute the planned “digital services law” as much as possible. Above all, Google’s strategy has a new quality.
“At five and a half million to six million euros, the tech group spends more than any other company in Brussels on lobbying,” says Max Bank of the LobbyControl Transparency Initiative. Also, Google has a wide network of lobbyists (memberships, actor funding) that is only partially transparent. “So Google also has a transparency problem in its lobbying work.”
Think tanks give lobbying a scientific aspect
This is also due to the fact that the high-tech company increasingly uses so-called think tanks for itself, think tanks – institutes that work independently, but are not always. “The problem here is that these connections between tech corporations and think tanks are not always revealed and, at the same time, think tanks have a reputation for scientific neutrality and therefore can influence political discourse to the benefit of tech corporations, “Bank complains. .
Obviously money doesn’t matter. Overall, big American tech companies spend nearly € 20 million on political persuasion in Brussels each year. That’s double what the European auto industry spends. And for the rest, corporations do not seem to be scrupulous when it comes to choosing their media, describes Tiemo Wölken, SPD digital expert in the EU Parliament.
Wölken thinks it is naive to assume that none of the big tech companies would prepare intensively for this, on the contrary: “What we have seen now in Google’s strategy document is, of course, a new dimension. Commissioners, for example, is something that is unacceptable. Discussion about the content, yes, gladly, always. But please, not on a personal level. “
At the moment, tech companies’ specialists are apparently working mainly with EU Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton, who is responsible for the reform of European digital policy, together with the Vice-President of the Commission, Margrete Vestager. He maintains a demonstrative calm and says: “Our laws are not written by lobbyists.”
Experts advise transparency and balance
But what can politics do to counter the enormous power of the lobby? The banking expert for the LobbyControl initiative advises transparency and balance to prevent Google & Co. from exerting unilateral influence. “At the same time, it’s clear: it’s five to twelve. Tech companies are already the financially strongest lobbyists in Brussels and they can also mobilize their platform for lobbying work,” he warns.
The YouTube video platform, for example, is part of the Google empire, and the group recently instrumentalized users in the dispute over the new copyright law, something that the SPD member of the European Parliament, Wölken, criticizes even the present day. As an antidote, it also relies on the greatest possible transparency.
“In the European Parliament we have committed ourselves as MEPs, when we are responsible for a law, to make public with whom we meet.” MPs are obliged to publish lobbyist contacts on the parliament website. “I’m doing it and I think it’s absolutely correct.” Unfortunately, according to Wölken, the Council and the Commission still lack the same level of transparency, which “would clearly help to roll back that influence.”
Commission Vice-President Margrete Vestager has a similar opinion, but a completely different idea. “I think the best strategy is to make a very strong proposal that is understandable and that people see that it is necessary and well balanced.” Vestager is convinced that this is the strongest counterattack that can be waged against lobbying. In plain English: if the laws are good enough, then the lobbyists of this world are just getting nowhere.
