The EU and Internet standards – Beyond the spin, a strategic turn?

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the nature and implications of the European Union (EU)’s recent discourse and policy approach towards Internet standards. Internet is a network of interconnected networks that can communicate with one another thanks to shared protocols, most often produced by standard-developing organisations. This research analyses the effects of the discursive turn of the EU – as part of its new digital sovereignty agenda – and investigates whether it has materialised into actual changes in the way the EU engages with the making process of Internet standards since 2019. This article shows that the EU’s approach towards these arenas has been and remains inconsistent. It argues that the EU’s increasing ‘digital assertiveness’ and digital sovereignty discourses have led to a few noticeable policy evolutions, whose effects remain largely unintended and that could further normalise state-based interventions in the Internet architecture.

KEYWORDS:

• Internet
• standardisation
• digital sovereignty
• standards
• European Union

Acknowledgments

We thank the anonymous reviewers and editors of the special issue for their careful reading of previous iterations of the manuscript and their many insightful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this article, we define technical standards as normative specifications enabling systems to communicate with each other, and allowing ‘interoperability of different software and hardware’ (Cath & Floridi, 2017), whereas protocols consist in ‘a set of recommendations and rules that outline specific technical standards’ (Galloway, 2004).

2 However, for historical reasons, most of the Internet standards are produced by the kind of SDOs which, borrowing from Richard Hawkins, we call private ‘consortia’ (Russell, 2006).

3 This proposal was first presented in 2019 at the ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG), a policy venue in which China appears to enjoy greater leverage than in other Internet consortia, and in particular in view to circumvent multistakeholder discussions at the IETF.

4 The list of research participants can be found in Appendix A. Some of these interviews took place in the frame on a research project funded by the European Parliament’s STOA Panel. Others were made subsequently to further explore the effects of discourses on sovereignty on the relationship between the EU and Internet standardisation.

5 Directive (EU) 2016/2102 on the accessibility of websites and mobile applications.

6 Standard EN 301 549 V1.1.2 (2015-04), cited in article 6 of the Web Accessibility Directive.

7 Von der Leyen, U., 2020, State of the Union Address by President von der Leyen at the European Parliament Plenary. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/SPEECH_20_1655

8 See more at: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2019-2024/breton/announcements/geopolitics-technology_en

9 See more at: https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/european-commission-sets-out-a-plan-to-regain-clout-in-standard-setting/

10 Co-chaired by the DGs GROW and CONNECT, the MSP is composed of national authorities from Member States, European and international ICT standardisation bodies, and stakeholder organisations that represent industry, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and consumers.

11 Updated annually, it lists all the topics identified as EU policy priorities where ICT standardisation, standards, or technical specifications can play a key role in the implementation of EU policies. It also includes a landscape analysis of ongoing standardisation activities by topic.

12 See: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52022DC0031

13 In CEN-CENELEC, companies are not directly represented, as the national delegation principle applies. Decisions are adopted by representatives of national standards bodies, defending a national position formulated by "national mirror committees" in each member country.

14 Their position paper is available online at : www.edf-feph.org/content/uploads/2022/04/FEDF-feedback-on-EC-Proposal-for-amending-Regulation-1025-2012-European-Standardisation.docx

15 Excerpt quoted from ANEC’s position paper, available online at: https://www.anec.eu/images/Publications/position-papers/Horizontal/ANEC-SC-2022-G-001-.pdf

16 Interview with a representative of EDF, 27/01/2023.

17 Funded through an EU framework project H2020, StandICT.eu 2023 is the successor of the previous StandICT.eu 2018–2020 project

18 Interview with a representative of European Digital SME Alliance, 15/12/2022.

19 For more, see: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/cef-dig-2021-cloud-dns-works

20 The consortium of 13 partners is led by a Czech IT company. For more, see: https://fel.cvut.cz/en/what-s-on/news/31370-the-european-commission-plans-to-onboard-100-million-people-to-a-new-eu-based-dns-internet-infrastructure-the-dns4eu-will-be-developed-by-international-consortium-including-ai-center-fee-ctu

21 See: https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2021-12/joint_communication_global_gateway.pdf

22 For more, see: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_22_7516

23 These claims are still debated. Nanni (2022b) has shown for instance how ‘New IP’ was not necessarily designed to replace the existing IP versions and should be understood in relation to technical issues raised by the the Internet-of-Things (IoT).

24 Interview with a representative of IETF, 25/10/2022.

25 Interview with a representative of IETF, 22/11/2022.

26 Interview with a representative of IETF, 12/02/2022.

27 Interview with a representative of IETF, 12/02/2022

28 Ibid.

29 Interview with a representative of ETSI, 11/09/2022.

30 This does not mean however that the European industry is absent from these processes. Data from Arkko (2023) indeed suggests that European companies, such as Nokia and Ericsson, are active and well-represented in the IETF. However, this observation does not apply to EU institutions and states.

31 For instance in the field of online privacy and data protection (Rossi, 2021),

32 A decision in 2022 by the Belgian Data Protection Authority, if upheld by court, would increase the level of influence of the EU over standard-setters by asserting that, at least in certain circumstances, they may be held accountable under existing EU legal frameworks. This can be understood as an attempt to impose a principle of hierarchy of norms, reinstating territorial laws as being above private or multi-stakeholder global technical standards. Belgian Data Protection Authority. Litigation Chamber. Decision on the merits 21/2022 of 2 February 2022.

Additional information

Funding

This work partly draws on a series of interviews conducted as part of a research funded by the European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) in 2022. The content of the document is the sole responsibility of its authors and any opinions expressed herein should not be taken to represent an official position of the European Parliament.

Notes on contributors

Clement Perarnaud

Clement Perarnaud is a post-doctoral researcher at the Brussels School of Governance of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, Belgium).

Julien Rossi

Julien Rossi is associate professor at the CEMTI of the University Paris 8 (France).