EU’s Digital Fitness Check– a critical opportunity
EU’s Digital Fitness Check is a critical opportunity to modernise EU digital regulation, strengthen competitiveness and enable innovation, without lowering regulatory standards. Better regulation is key with focus on simpler rules, clearer obligations, proportionality and risk.
Europe’s position in the global digital economy has weakened rapidly. Between 2013 and 2022, Europe’s share of the global ICT market nearly halved. Today, the EU trails the United States and China in seven of the eight most strategic technologies. This affects not only the tech sector, but productivity and competitiveness across the entire economy.
One key reason is the growing volume and complexity of digital regulation. The EU has set high ambitions to protect consumers and fundamental rights. But the cumulative regulatory burden increasingly makes it harder for companies to innovate, invest and adopt new technologies. This holds back growth across all sectors.
The Digital Fitness Check matters
The European Commission’s Digital Fitness Check comes at a crucial moment. It offers a real chance to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness. This does not require deregulation or lower standards. What is needed is modern regulation: simpler rules, clearer obligations and a stronger focus on proportionality and risk.
Today’s digital rulebook is fragmented. EU rules are interpreted and implemented differently across member states, undermining the digital single market. Companies also face overlapping and sometimes conflicting obligations. This creates legal uncertainty and makes it difficult to understand how different rules apply in practice, especially for new technologies and business models.
Regulation is too often prescriptive and insufficiently risk‑based. Requirements are imposed regardless of actual risk. At the same time, administrative burdens are high and timelines unrealistic. Combined with weak alignment with international standards, this reduces Europe’s attractiveness as a place to innovate and scale globally.
From analysis to action
Swedish Enterprise has contributed actively to the discussion on regulatory simplification through position papers on the GDPR, ePrivacy, Digital Omnibus and the AI Omnibus, as well as joint work within BusinessEurope1. The Digital Fitness Check should build on this work and go further.
The Commission should prioritise consistent implementation across member states. It should provide clear guidance on how different rules interact and identify where obligations are disproportionate or misaligned with global standards. Concrete improvements are needed across key areas, including data protection, data sharing, cybersecurity, platform regulation, AI and copyright.
What this means for Sweden
For Sweden, a digital frontrunner with high digital maturity across the economy, this Fitness Check is particularly important. Innovation moves fast, and opportunities are often time‑sensitive. EU rules must therefore be relevant, workable and aligned with real‑world business conditions to avoid holding back the speed at which new technologies can be developed, tested and deployed.
The Digital Fitness Check should ensure that EU digital rules support memberstates driving digitalisation, competitiveness and growth. The regulatory framework must enable pace, scale and opportunity in a rapidly changing global digital economy.
1. Making the General Data Protection Regulation more effective