Digital Europe, a network of companies, including Intel, EY and Philips [*], in a declaration urges the EU to reduce the regulatory burden.

Data
In the executive brief they write:

Europe’s data framework has grown increasingly complex, going beyond the well-established General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with overlapping rules like the Data Act and Data Governance Act (DGA) that impose significant burdens on businesses. These regulations often criminalise data markets before they fully develop, creating a burdensome environment around data sharing and governance. To avoid compounding these challenges, the application of the Data Act should be postponed to allow time for simplification under the upcoming digital package.

and have a lot of recommendations, also on GDPR:

Clarify the GDPR without reopening it:

• Reinforce the use of ‘legitimate interest’ as a ground to process personal data for key use cases such as product development – including of AI models – and security.
• Clarify that pseudonymised data is not personal data when recipients cannot reasonably re-identify individuals.

The proposal under the first bullet point does not seem to be in the interests of citizens.

AI
The AI Act is also being criticised:

However, its extensive scope and complexity pose significant challenges for industry compliance, particularly when it comes to harmonised standards, conformity assessments and the interaction with sector-specific legislation.

and they recommend amongst others to replace the fundamental rights impact assessments (FRIAs) with data protection impact assessments (DPIAs), which are already mandated by the GDPR.

Cybersecurity
According to the group the European cybersecurity framework has become highly fragmented, with overlapping reporting requirements from multiple regulations such as NIS2 and the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), as well as sectoral frameworks like DORA for finance. On this topic there are many recommendations as well.

It is a powerful lobby group that makes far-reaching proposals. It is to be hoped that the interests of citizens and SMEs will be represented just as firmly.

[*] The organisation describes itself as “the leading trade association representing digitally transforming industries in Europe“.