EESC calls for balanced simplification of EU digital rules to boost competitiveness and protect rights

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has welcomed the European Commission’s proposals to simplify the EU’s digital rulebook, stressing that simplification must strengthen competitiveness without weakening fundamental rights, social standards or legal certainty.

In its opinion on the Digital and AI Omnibus, the EESC underlined that cutting red tape can bring immediate relief to businesses, administrations and citizens, but warned against lowering existing safeguards, particularly those enshrined in the GDPR and the AI Act.

'Companies, workers and consumers need clear, coherent rules that reduce compliance risks and administrative burdens, without lowering standards in substance,' said rapporteur Heiko Willems. He added that fragmentation, duplicative requirements and unclear definitions continue to hamper innovation and growth.

The Committee called for further simplification measures to be developed as part of the upcoming Digital Fitness Check, in close cooperation with businesses, workers, civil society and the scientific community.

A key priority is to clarify and harmonise core definitions across EU digital legislation, including personal data, data holder and placing on the market, in order to reduce legal uncertainty.

The Committee also called for clearer rules on anonymised and pseudonymised data to support innovation, while ensuring strong protection of personal data and respect for data minimisation principles. It emphasised the importance of ensuring access to personal data for legitimate purposes, such as protecting workers’ rights and health and safety.

Risk-based AI framework must remain coherent

On the AI Omnibus, the EESC reaffirmed its support for a risk-based and proportionate approach that enables innovation while safeguarding fundamental and workers’ rights.

It warned that overlaps between the AI Act and sector-specific legislation could create unnecessary costs and delays and called for a 'simplification by design' approach combined with 'rights by design'.

Co-rapporteur Angelo Pagliara stressed the importance of involving workers’ representatives whenever AI is introduced in the workplace, ensuring full respect for consultation rights and robust oversight.

'This is why we asked the Commission to put in place a mechanism for the consultation of social partners,' he said, also calling for transparent governance of datasets and clear rules for high-risk AI systems.

The Committee also supported the development of regulatory sandboxes and the alignment of compliance deadlines with the availability of harmonised standards, while stressing the need for transparency, accountability and human oversight in AI systems.

It also underlined the importance of timely agreement on the proposals and highlighted the key role of the AI Office in ensuring consistent implementation across Member States.

Single entry point to ease compliance

The EESC welcomed plans to reduce administrative burden through a genuinely interoperable EU single entry point for reporting obligations under NIS2, GDPR, DORA, eIDAS and CER.

Such a system would allow companies to reuse information, submit reports in English and benefit from streamlined procedures, easing compliance while strengthening cybersecurity and resilience.

The Committee underlined that such a single entry point should also apply strict ‘need‑to‑know’ access controls for authorities and that pilots should be co‑designed together with industry and the social partners.

Simplification must support SMEs without loopholes

The EESC recognised the need to ensure a simplified regulatory framework for SMEs and small mid-caps, while at the same time stressing that such simplified regimes must apply only to genuinely independent companies, in line with EU definitions, to prevent misuse.

Finally, it also called for limiting mandatory data-sharing obligations to strictly necessary cases and strengthening incentives for voluntary data sharing through common European data spaces.