The Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) exchange views with Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age in the context of structured dialogue in the European Parliament in Brussels.

digital agenda (T)

Brussels

exchange of views

VESTAGER, Margrethe (DK, CE)

WÖLKEN, Tiemo (S&D, DE)

MELCHIOR, Karen (Renew, DK)

WALSMANN, Marion (EPP, DE)

STANCANELLI, Raffaele (ECR, IT)

Structured dialogue: extracts from the exchange of views with Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the EC in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, We need to invest in more and better connectivity. I think everyone has seen this sort of crash course of doing evrething digital, that connectivities is of the essence. Seconds that we built a real digital and data economy as a motor for innovation and job creation. I think this is also a precondition for the promotion of trustworthy A.I. in Europe that we have this a data economy. Third is that we promote also a digital single markets and we promote the ease and the fairness of doing business in Europe. 

SOUNDBITE (German), Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), My question concerns artificial intelligence, one of my main areas. Especially in the pandemic, we have noticed how helpful the application could be in order to cope with such a major crisis.  Corona is just one of many examples. 

SOUNDBITE (English), Tiemo W&#214;LKEN (S&amp;D, DE), What lessons does the Commission draw from the ruling on the law? How will the Commission framed its proposal for the Digital Services Act in order to preventing the effect of over blocking and fundamental rights infringements in content management? 

SOUNDBITE (English), Karen MELCHIOR (RE, DK), So how do we ensure operability, interconnectivity between platform and how do we define which platform to meet higher demands than others? Because they have a specific role, not even not only in the market and but also in our society, as the online platform for our Democratic debate. 

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Raffaele STANCANELLI  (ECR, IT),  The relative issue also addressed by other Commissioners this morning relating to so-called GAFAs, and all other platforms in our market.  I would like to understand how we can work for supervision by posting on their work to ensure that the rules of competition are complied with,  and how consumers rights can be guaranteed and to use their services in the most absolute correctness, respecting even those whose smaller platforms. 

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the EC in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, During the crisis, it really showed that A.I. is very useful. It has been used in numerous locations in order to help out research, in order to process tests faster. We have made good use of high performance computing here, in order to establish models that could help decisions makers in what to do as how to deal with with the virus.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the EC in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, Legal clarity versus overregulation. Of course, no one wants to overregulate, but that is how it's it can feel sometime. The most interesting or vivid debate is the core, this risk based approach. How to define what is risk, because technology that is not risky in some circumstance can indeed be risky in other circumstance when it comes to fundamental values like being free of discrimination.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the EC in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age,  We live in societies who cherish fundamental values and we do our best to put it into real life. So there must be fundamentals that also smallc platforms should be able to live up to,  while, of course, there should be a special responsibility for those who have developed into gatekeeper's. 

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Executive Vice-President of the EC in charge of Europe fit for the Digital Age, The question of how to ensure that we constantly are vigilant with the gatekeepers, with the GAFAs. Of course, I have an obligation to make sure that my services and the Commission as  such, stays vigilant on competition law enforcement. And you've probably seen that we have opened two cases concerning Apple, both concerning Apple Pay and concerning the Apple store, the Apple App Store for the commercial practices here when Apple are in competition with other companies, that being music or news or other issues.