No plans for EU online regulator - officials
By Julia Fioretti
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Draft plans for a pan-European regulator for online businesses did not win backing and have been scrapped, EU officials said on Friday.
An EU-wide strategy for the digital economy is due to be announced next month, reflecting concerns in Europe about the power of big U.S. tech companies like Google and Amazon.
"It didn't get any political backing," one EU official said of the paper, which was at odds with pledges from the new EU executive to avoid heavy top-down regulation on business.
Prepared in February and seen by Reuters, the paper spoke of a framework for supervising "systemic digital actors" by an "EU-wide body" with power to intervene in disputes.
But EU officials said the idea did not gain enough backing within the EU executive and an updated version of the European Commission's strategy for creating a digital single market, also seen by Reuters and expected to be unveiled on May 6, makes no mention of setting up a new EU regulator.
"All papers and notes produced to help prepare the Digital Single Market Strategy have by now been superseded," Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said.
"One of the aims is to create the right conditions and a level playing field for digital networks and innovative services to flourish. In this context, the Commission will look into the role of online platforms and detail any possible future actions."
Brussels is under pressure from some politicians and European companies to be seen to be doing something to tame U.S. online giants and nurture Europe's own, limited, tech sector. The EU antitrust chief last week charged Google with abusing its power in Internet search in a long-running, high-profile case.
(Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Elaine Hardcastle)
