2 MAY 2017
Mr. Andrus Ansip
Vice-President of the European Commission
Dear Mr. Vice-President,
The Digital Single Market strategy recognises the potential of Europe to position itself as a world leading
actor in the digital economy. Moreover, a stronger and more coherent Digital Single Market is essential to
boost growth and jobs in all regions across Europe, and to ensure Europe’s global competitiveness. We
have strongly supported the strategy’s vision of a Digital Single Market with a simple, transparent and
stable regulatory environment that stimulates digital entrepreneurship and spurs digitisation across the
economy to the benefit of business and consumers.
In anticipation of the Commission’s mid-term review of the Digital Single Market Strategy, we commend
the Commission for delivering initiatives on all the main themes presented in the strategy as progress on all
elements is essential to reap the benefits of a single and coherent digital market. The mid-term review also
offers an opportunity for both the Commission and Member States to take stock on the implementation of
the strategy, remind ourselves of the objectives to remove barriers to trade in the digital economy, and to
reflect on how far the results obtained thus far bring us towards realising the overall ambition of
positioning Europe as a world leading actor in the digital economy.
A high level of ambition for the European economy must be supported by a positive approach to digital
disruption. Other countries and regions are making great strides towards reaping the benefits of the new
digital economy and we must embrace the transformative potential of digitisation in order to maintain and
improve Europe’s competitiveness in the global digital economy, even when this requires us to
fundamentally rethink, update or abolish existing regulations.
The Digital Single Market should be characterised by openness towards innovation and new business
models, by greater competition, removing existing barriers and a favourable environment for new entrants.
This would give innovative European companies the best chances to scale up and challenge the current
digital leaders from other parts of the world.
We believe a market-based approach is required where businesses do not face unjustified burdens, can
operate freely across borders like they do in their home countries, and where all legislation enables
digitisation. The mid-term review should reflect the prospect for achieving these core objectives based on
the proposed initiatives and identify needs for further reform.
In particular, we emphasize the need to:
Pay specific attention to the overall framework for digital start-ups and the scale-up potential of
companies in the Digital Single Market. We recall that one of the key ambitions of the strategy is to
“ensure that Europe maintains its position as a world leader in the digital economy, helping
European companies to grow globally.” In this respect, a key point is that European start-ups and
scale-ups should be able to consider the Digital Single Market as their ‘home market’ with coherent
regulation and framework conditions to reverse the trend that European digital companies move
their business out of Europe to scale-up. A successful transformation towards digital economy will
also depend on our commitment to fully exploit the growth and productivity potential of European
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