The European Commission is preparing a new stage in the digital governance of the Union. Baptized Digital Omnibusthis set of measures aims to simplify a set of regulations that have become too complex and to strengthen coherence between the major texts adopted since 2020 on data, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. Behind the technical objective, the issue is of course political, namely consolidate European digital sovereignty.
A project born from regulatory stacking
For five years, the European Union has produced a series of structuring texts, starting with the GDPR for the protection of personal data, the Data Governance Act and the Data Act to supervise the sharing of data, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA) to regulate the large platforms, without forgetting the Cyber Resilience Act and theAI Actthe world’s first framework for artificial intelligence.
This normative edifice, hailed for its rigor, has also generated a heavy administrative burdenin particular for SMEs and public actors faced with multiple, sometimes redundant, rules. It is in this context that the Commission launched in mid-September, a call for contributions to build a digital simplification package baptized Digital Omnibus.
An ambition for consistency and efficiency
The project is part of the official communication “A simpler and faster Europe”which sets three priorities:
- Reduce administrative burden by generalizing the principle once only so that businesses and citizens only have to provide the same data once to an administration.
- Align obligations between the different digital regulations to create a harmonized compliance environment on a European scale.
- Accelerate the digitalization of public serviceswith logic digital by default inspired by Estonian and Danish models.
If the Digital Omnibus is not a new regulation, its objective is rewrite and align several existing provisions to improve their readability and remove overlaps.
Towards integrated European digital governance
The objective pursued is to build a framework where data circulates more freely between administrationswhile maintaining a high level of security and protection. This approach is based on the idea that European competitiveness now depends on quality of its administrative and legal infrastructure and enable seamless interoperability between Member States, ministries and institutions.
THE Digital Omnibus is thus linked to structuring European programs such as the Once Only Technical System (OOTS)which sets up the automatic circulation of data between public authorities, Gaia-Xfor an interoperable and sovereign cloud, and the European Data Innovation Boardwhich coordinates the governance of sectoral data spaces.
A text still under discussion
The final draft must be presented by the end of 2025, before the amendment phases by the Parliament and the Council.
The public consultation has already sparked several reviews, certain civil society actors, such as European Digital Rights (EDRi)fear a weakening of explicit consent provided for by the ePrivacy Directive; others point out the risk of partial deregulation for the benefit of large platforms and the advertising industry, under the guise of simplification; finally, observers believe that the fragmentation of national initiatives (cloud, cybersecurity, AI) risks limiting the effects of the text if it is not accompanied by unified governance.
An issue of digital sovereignty
Beyond administrative simplification, the Digital Omnibus is also part of a strategy of reduce dependence on Europe to extra-European infrastructures. Today, almost 70% of European data passes through American serversand less than 10% of advanced chips are manufactured on the continent. The Commission wants to create a common base which makes it possible to secure public dataofharmonize proceduresand building trust in digital services.
Between simplification and vigilance
The challenge is to simplify without weakeningif the Commission manages to reduce regulatory complexity without weakening the guarantees of the GDPR and ePrivacy, the Digital Omnibus could become the administrative backbone of European digital sovereignty. Conversely, a text that is too permissive would risk calling into question the European model of data protection.
