Regulating Chaos: Is the EU’s Digital “Simplification” a Trojan Horse?

It started as a campaign promise: cut through the digital red tape, make compliance easier, and put Europe at the forefront of tech governance. Now, as the EU’s “Digital Omnibus” proposal lands on the negotiating table, what once sounded like common sense reform is starting to look more like a regulatory shell game - one where the rules keep changing, and only the biggest players know how to win.

Fast Facts

• The Digital Omnibus aims to consolidate and simplify a tangle of EU digital regulations.
• Key oversight bodies, including the EDPB and EDPS, have raised concerns about risks to fundamental rights.
• Rapid regulatory shifts threaten the stability and credibility of the EU’s digital policy framework.
• Lack of broad stakeholder involvement has fueled criticism of the process as exclusionary and opaque.
• Big Tech may benefit from uncertainty, while smaller players struggle to keep up with shifting requirements.

The European Union’s recent push for “simplification” of digital law is, on its face, a response to years of hyperactive rulemaking. In just five years, the EU rolled out a flurry of “Acts” targeting everything from artificial intelligence to market competition - each with its own compliance maze. Now, officials are promising to clean house with the Digital Omnibus, a sweeping effort to merge, prune, and clarify the rules.

But the speed and manner of this reversal are raising eyebrows. According to critics, the very policymakers who championed an era of maximalist regulation are now scrambling to undo their own work - without clear strategy or accountability. The result? A regulatory landscape in constant flux, where businesses face more uncertainty than ever.

“Accountability by design” is the new buzzword, but what does it mean when the rules are written in pencil? Oversight agencies such as the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) have sounded the alarm. In a rare joint opinion, they warn that certain “simplifications” could erode the safeguards meant to protect citizens’ fundamental rights - privacy, data protection, and freedom from algorithmic bias.

The process itself has drawn fire for its lack of transparency. Many stakeholders - especially smaller digital businesses and civil society groups - report being left out of key discussions. This exclusionary approach stands in stark contrast to the EU’s own rhetoric about participatory policymaking.

For Big Tech, however, regulatory chaos may be a blessing in disguise. With deep legal budgets and armies of compliance experts, global giants can weather uncertainty far better than their smaller European counterparts. The risk: Europe’s ambitions to foster digital sovereignty and innovation may be undermined by the very reforms meant to help.

As the Digital Omnibus speeds toward approval, the message from critics is clear: simplification is not child’s play. When the stakes are fundamental rights and economic competitiveness, the EU can’t afford to treat digital governance as a game of trial and error. The next moves will reveal whether Europe is ready to play by its own rules - or simply rewrite them for the highest bidder.

WIKICROOK

• Digital Omnibus: The Digital Omnibus is an EU proposal to merge and simplify digital regulations, making compliance easier and supporting a unified digital market.
• EDPB: The EDPB is an EU body ensuring consistent GDPR enforcement and cooperation among national data protection authorities.
• EDPS: The EDPS supervises personal data protection in EU institutions, ensuring compliance with privacy laws and advising on data security and policy matters.
• Accountability by design: Accountability by design integrates responsibility and compliance into systems from the start, ensuring transparency and regulatory adherence in cybersecurity.
• Stakeholder: A stakeholder is anyone with an interest in or affected by an organization’s activities, such as customers, employees, partners, or investors.