The Tech Brief

France, the country currently at the helm of the EU Council, is heading towards crucial elections next month. We discuss with EURACTIV France reporter Mathieu Pollet the role digital issues play in the presidential campaign, the impact of the Ukrainian conflict and any potential changes in the handling of EU files due to digital minister Cedric O stepping down.

Cyberattacks are hardly limited to one country in an interconnected world. We discuss the impact of Russian cyberattacks against Ukraine on European companies with dr Vera Demary,  head of digitalization at the German economic institute, and Iva Tasheva, cybersecurity consultant at CyEn.

Google experimenting with its Privacy Sandbox, Facebook blaming Apple for a massive loss of revenues, pending EU legislation. The world of digital advertising is changing fast, with plenty of moving parts. We discuss the topic with Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next.

The EU has a growing base of startups but in a market so large and diverse, accessing funding can present a key challenge. In this episode, Thanos Paraschos, co-founder of the European Startup Universe, and Robbert van der Meer, co-founder and CEO of bFlex, discuss the obstacles faced by startups and how creating networks to link entrepreneurs and investors could help to address them.  

EU lawmakers are pushing to include interoperability obligations for messaging services and social media platforms in the Digital Markets Act. The proposal has been met with great interest, but also skepticism on its practical viability. We discuss the matter with Amandine Le Pape, Chief Operations Office & co-founder at messaging app Element, and one of the main architects of Matrix, a standard for open communications.

With Alessandro Gropelli, deputy director-general at the European Telecoms Association (ETNO), we take stoke of digital networks in Europe, the structural problems of the telecom market compared to international competitors and potential remedies to stimulate infrastructural investments.

The VBER revision will have an important impact on online sales for the next 10 years. We discuss how the regulation will affect digital markets with Maike Jansen, public affairs advisor at Ecommerce Europe.

As efforts to regulate digital platforms gather steam, attention to the issue of online anonymity is growing. This week’s episode looks at the arguments being made for both limiting and preserving anonymity and pseudonymity online, and how these have played out in the context of the UK’s Draft Online Safety Bill.

As the debate on digital sovereignty is as relevant as ever, we discuss with Jean-Marc Leclerc, the head of IBM’s policy lab, Europe’s position on emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing and cloud.

As Paris has taken over the rotating presidency of the EU Council, we discuss with our correspondent Mathieu Pollet how France is expected to shape the EU digital agenda in the coming months. And how the upcoming presidential elections will influence the French presidency.