Europe aims at the protection of fundamental rights

Thus, the GDPR was followed by the Data Act (regulating the circulation of data), the Data Governance Act (on data re-use and so-called 'data altruism'), the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act (also regulating the new obligations of digital platforms), the NIS 2 (on cyber security), the Eidas 2 (on European digital identity) and the Ai Act (on access to the European market for artificial intelligence products and services).

Affirming European digital sovereignty, as well as affirming Europe's role in the global geopolitical scenario, means affirming European values and rights, as is repeated insistently in these legislative acts.

As the Draghi Report states: 'This is an existential challenge. Europe's core values are prosperity, fairness, freedom, peace and democracy in a sustainable environment. The EU exists to ensure that Europeans can always benefit from these fundamental rights. If Europe is no longer able to provide them to its citizens - or if it has to exchange one for the other - it will have lost its raison d'être'. However, one must also ask oneself whether the instruments used are up to the ends. In other words, is European digital regulation able to effectively protect the fundamental rights enshrined in the European Charter, which express the values of our society?

One does not argue about the objective, but about the method to achieve it.

There is no doubt that this complex body of legislation presents some critical issues. First of all, its very copiousness and then its complexity. The regulatory apparatus, which is very extensive, also presents some inconsistencies within it: suffice it to think of the much-discussed definition of anonymous data, central, for example, to scientific research in the world of health and preventive medicine, which does not coincide in the various Regulations mentioned above. And the Draghi Report does not fail to point out other inconsistencies and the problem of over regulation. So, going digital in Europe means bearing additional burdens, arising from EU regulations, which are copious, fragmented and not easy to interpret.

But one could accept this if it led to greater protection of fundamental rights, if it was necessary to protect European citizens. Then the real question is: is this an appropriate method of legislating? Unfortunately, we are now a long way from legislating by means of 'general and abstract' standards and, partly due to the influence of the Anglo-Saxon world, the European legislator is increasingly adopting a method based on proceduralisation and compliance. When it comes to dictating rules on technology, the European legislator - in fact - is certainly not an advocate of technological neutrality. So perhaps we could correct the course and focus on the protection of fundamental rights, which remains the shared and unavoidable objective, with other tools: enhance the value of ex post protection, look for functional answers in technology itself to protect rights, do not claim to regulate everything, even what is not yet known, and leave room for entrepreneurial activity and experimentation, without suffocating in the rules of compliance, necessarily anchored to the present and not very adequate to ensure an open vision of the future.