Converging markets and blurred borders – challenges for e-commerce in Europe – WS 11 2018

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Consolidated programme 2018 overview

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Session teaser

In the digital economy services are merging more and more across different sectors. Many of these services are bundled into integrated offers. In addition, markets are integrating and national borders are becoming less relevant and therefore allow increased cross-border trading. This development coupled with shorter innovation cycles may require to rethink consumer rights. One of the core issue to address is how to achieve an effective legislative framework which ensures trust and empowers consumers, with clear and predictable rules for both users and industry - creating a well-functioning market. These issues are part of ongoing legislative debates on an international as well as national levels.

Keywords

  • consumer rights
  • e-commerce
  • cross border
  • Internet economy

Session description

With the development of the Internet and continued speed up deployment of Internet Access Services (IAS) around Europe, e-commerce has continued to grow to be a central force in the economy. A rather broad concept, according to the WTO, it can be defined as involving among other things “the electronic delivery of services, meaning transactions in which services products are delivered to the customer in the form of digitised information flows;” and “the use of the Internet as a channel for distribution services, by which goods and services are purchased over the net but delivered to the consumer subsequently in non-electronic form.

The economic impact has been immense. While global e-commerce was valued at $150 billion in 1999, it has multiplied to $2.3 trillion in 2017. However, global e-commerce as well as within Europe, has far from reached its full potential and there are many issues that needs to be resolved. These involve: developing trustful payment mechanisms, ensuring cross-border data flows, intermediary liability, as well as fragmentation of tax rules and consumer rights. Some of the negative effects is the problem of making consumers buy goods online, having companies develop platforms to trade goods.

The legal framework for e-commerce should be sufficiently flexible to accommodate the rapid evolution of technologies and markets. It should also allow the development of online commercial activities respecting fundamental principles and rights, recognized at the EU level. Current discussions within WTO were blocked last year in 2017 as some countries did not want to discuss these issues on an international level.

The questions that will be addressed are:

- What are the most important Internet Governance issues that should be part of E-commerce rules that is sought to be negotiated in various fora- FTAs and WTO?

- What are the implications of these E-Commerce rules on internet governance issues?

- What are issues are most pertinent to address from a consumer, business and government perspective respectively (net neutrality, privacy, security, online payments, digital literacy etc.)? What are currently the biggest hurdles to further develop e-Commerce in Europe?

- How can we ensure a broad stakeholder participation in the development of e-commerce rules?

- How can we make sure that national/regional legislation does not contradict developments on an international level?

- What are the necessary steps to agree on an international framework for e-commerce rules, what are the processes we need to ensure?

Format

The format of the session will be based on an interactive framework with

  • 1) Human spectrogram with the audience
  • 2) 5-7 minutes presentation by the panellists
  • 3) Discussion with the panel
  • 4) Q&A with the audience

Further reading

Links to relevant websites, declarations, books, documents. Please note we cannot offer web space, so only links to external resources are possible. Example for an external link: Website of EuroDIG

People

Focal Point

  • Kristina Olausson, Policy Officer, European Telecommunication Network Operator's Association (ETNO)

Organising Team (Org Team)

  • Erika Mann, Senior Advisor, Covington & Burling
  • Oliana Sula, University "Aleksander Moisiu Durres" Albania/Estonian Business School
  • Eka Kubusidze, Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia
  • Sophie Tvalavadze, Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia
  • Guram Keleptrishvili, Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia


Key Participants

  • Jonathan Cave, Senior Tutor in Economis at Warwick University & Senior Research Fellow, Rand Europe.

Cave's research is focused on combined voting/economic games, regulatory design and evaluation, implementation and mechanism design, telecommunications and internet policy, governance of livestock disease, complexity in (esp.) healthcare systems, games played on networks, procurement and innovation, sustainable development, privacy, identity and trust, eGovernment. More info [here][1].

  • Tornike Jobava, Project Manager for BFD (Broadband for Development), Georgia’s Innovation and Technology Agency (GITA)
  • David Lawrence Lee, Chief Executive Officer, European Business Association Georgia

Came to Georgia in February of 2004 and was the CEO of Magticom, the largest telecommunications company on Georgia, until the end of 2016 and President of American Chamber of Commerce from 2008 until 2012. He is currently the CEO of Lee LLC and Chairman of the Europe Foundation and CRRC. David has an MBA from Warwick Business School, qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG and speaks Georgian and Russian. A former Royal Navy Officer, he has led companies in developing markets since 1990.

Moderator

  • Kristina Olausson, Policy Officer, European Telecommunication Network Operator's Association (ETNO)

Olausson joined ETNO in March 2017. She works with the Regulatory Affairs and Public Policy teams, working mainly on issues related to content and services. This involves privacy, consumer law, trade, and connected cars. She previously worked as Project Assistant within the Dutch 2016 Presidency of the EU Council on a conference on digital government and as Information Officer with the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions in Brussels. She has experience from working with data policy and digital governance. Kristina graduated with a double-degree MA cum laude in European Governance from Utrecht University and Masaryk University (2016). She also holds a BA in Political Science and Economics from Lund University and completed an exchange semester at Istanbul Bilgi University (2010). She has been awarded with scholarships for her prominent achievements.

Remote Moderator

The Remote Moderator is in charge of facilitating participation via digital channels such as WebEx and social medial (Twitter, facebook). Remote Moderators monitor and moderate the social media channels and the participants via WebEX and forward questions to the session moderator. Please contact the EuroDIG secretariat if you need help to find a Remote Moderator.

Reporter

Reporters will be assigned by the EuroDIG secretariat in cooperation with the Geneva Internet Platform. The Reporter takes notes during the session and formulates 3 (max. 5) bullet points at the end of each session that:

  • are summarised on a slide and presented to the audience at the end of each session
  • relate to the particular session and to European Internet governance policy
  • are forward looking and propose goals and activities that can be initiated after EuroDIG (recommendations)
  • are in (rough) consensus with the audience

Current discussion, conference calls, schedules and minutes

See the discussion tab on the upper left side of this page. Please use this page to publish:

  • dates for virtual meetings or coordination calls
  • short summary of calls or email exchange

Please be as open and transparent as possible in order to allow others to get involved and contact you. Use the wiki not only as the place to publish results but also to summarize the discussion process.

Messages

A short summary of the session will be provided by the Reporter.

Video record

Will be provided here after the event.

Transcript

Will be provided here after the event.