Draghi Report Highlights Why to Be Wary of the ‘Brussels Effect’
Everyone in Europe, and across the international competition-law sphere, seems to have their own interpretation these days of former Italian Prime Minister and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s recent report “The Future of European Competitiveness” (a.k.a., the “Draghi report”). And, of course, those various interpretations, unsurprisingly, inevitably match the interpreter’s policy preferences.
This is not necessarily the fault of those commenting on the report. As The Economist notes: “Mr. Draghi’s recommendations are so numerous that policymakers will be able to pick and choose from among them.” But despite these somewhat equivocal prescriptions, the report makes at least one thing crystal clear: the EU’s regulatory zeal is not the success story its proponents make it out to be.
This is most evidently true in the area of digital markets, where the EU has enacted several sweeping regulations in recent years: the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the AI Act. As I explain below, the Draghi report ought to be received by other jurisdictions as an admonition to be cautious about following the European example when it comes to digital markets regulation.