Digital policy had a prominent role in the EU agenda over the past 5 years, as it was one of the two pillars of the twin digital and green transition. A number of strategies, pieces of legislation, opinions and recommendations were issued during the 2019-2024 EU parliamentary term, including on online platform regulation, Artificial Intelligence, data and cybersecurity.
At the same time, the EU has adopted for the first time a strategy for the future of democracy in Europe, the European Democracy Action Plan (EDAP), which we have also analysed here. Among other actions, the EDAP also had a strong focus on digital policy, as many of the issues mentioned in the strategy were once again linked to online platforms, political advertising online and disinformation.
While a lot was achieved, problems were also posed on how to integrate the topic of democracy with the digital priorities into a coherent agenda, as digital policy touches upon so many issues that it is often challenging to put the democracy aspect at the forefront. At the same time, many delays also made it so that most of the new rules and mechanisms did not come into force before the upcoming EU elections.
In this paper, we will take stock of the EU digital & democracy agenda 2019-2024 with 5 lessons learned and how to take them further with 5 recommendations for the next mandate 2024-2029.