Abstract
The world is facing a technological revolution where the internet is transforming our way of life in every dimension. The European Union (EU)—as the European Commission (EC) has identified its six priorities—aims to take the leading global role in several policy areas to “build a stronger Union in the world.” The spread of the internet revolutionizes several sectors and industries and affects innovation, competitiveness, efficiency, security, and—among others—sustainability. The continuous innovation and the ubiquitous digital single market (DSM) open new possibilities for the European Union to become “fit for the Digital Age.” The Tech revolution requires smart legislation which is able to foster innovation. Designing a good legal architecture is an opportunity for the European Union, on the one hand, to harmonize the 27 Member States (MSs) national digital markets into a single one and, on the other hand, to use its market power to influence digital laws all over the world. Extraterritoriality is a key feature of European Union law that is based on the European market power. Providing access to the world’s largest single market for third-state actors is an advantage for which multinational corporations tend to comply with European standards and apply them outside the EU as well. Therefore, designing the digital laws is a power for the European Union enabling to export continental solutions outside the borders of the European integration. Exporting standards via corporate compliance is a soft power for the European Union to influence third countries’ legal systems without signing international agreements with those countries to do so. This gives opportunities for the EU to become a world leader in digital legislation, but creates new challenges for it as well.
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Kiss, L.N. (2023). EU Soft Power: Digital Law. In: Ramiro Troitiño, D., Kerikmäe, T., Hamuľák, O. (eds) Digital Development of the European Union. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27312-4_17
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