News, Publications and Consultations from the Past Week
News CW 21 (19.05.2025-25.05.2025)
AI: According to a ruling by the Higher Regional Court (OLG) in Cologne, Germany, the Internet company Meta is allowed to use data from publicly available user profiles for AI training purposes. In summary proceedings on Friday, 23 May 2025, the 15th Civil Senate of the OLG rejected an application by the North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Advice Centre against the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, as announced by a court spokesperson. In the Senate’s view, Meta has not violated any provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the Digital Markets Act (DMA) of the European Union.
6G: The German VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH, a service provider and consulting company, has published a study on the future 6G mobile communications standard.
Wi-Fi vs. 6G: In an open letter to Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for Technical Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, 58 companies and associations are calling for the upper 6 GHz band (6.425-7.125 GHz) to be allocated for licence-free use and made available for unrestricted Wi-Fi operation. Shortly before, 12 mobile network operators had already claimed this spectrum for themselves and the future 6G network.
Data centres: Management consultancy McKinsey estimates that global demand for data centre capacity could nearly triple by 2030. Approximately 70% of this demand would be attributed to AI workloads. To keep pace with demand, data centres will require investments of nearly 7 trillion US dollars.
AI: The EU Commission has published a consultation on the strategy for a European Data Union. The Data Union Strategy is intended to help build high-quality, interoperable and diverse datasets which are needed, for example, for the development of generative AI.
GDPR: The EU Commission is creating a new category of “small mid-cap” companies, which will in the future be exempt from the GDPR. This category includes companies with up to 750 employees and either a turnover of 150 million euros or a balance sheet total of up to 129 million euros.
Selected Publications from the EP Think Tanks
- Improving mental health at work
- Slovakia’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan: Latest state of play
- Preventing radicalisation in the European Union: How EU policy has evolved
- Finland’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan: Latest state of play
- Free movement of capital
- Trafficking in children
- General principles of EU industrial policy
- RRF implementation underway: Cybersecurity measures
- General tax policy
- Direct taxation: Personal and company taxation
- Vocational education and training
Ongoing Relevant European Commission Consultations
- European Democracy Shield (until 26.05.2025)
- Activation of EU rules on radio equipment for reconfigurable radio systems (until 27.05.2025)
- European Critical Communication System (until 28.05.2025)
- Format, template and technical specifications of the labels and transparency notices of political advertisements (until 28.05.2025)
- Combating online piracy of sports and other live events – assessment of the May 2023 Commission Recommendation (until 28.05.2025)
- Connecting Europe Facility 2021-2027 – interim evaluation (until 28.05.2025)
- Connecting Europe Facility 2014-2020 – evaluation (until 28.05.2025)
- Automotive sector (cybersecurity rules)- L-category vehicles (until 02.06.2025)
- Vehicle safety – cybersecurity requirements for L-category vehicles (until 02.06.2025)
- Quantum Strategy of the EU (until 03.06.2025)
- Apply AI Strategy – strengthening the AI continent (until 04.06.2025)
- AI Continent – new cloud and AI development act (until 03.06.2025)
- A European Strategy for AI in science – paving the way for a European AI research council (until 05.06.2025)
- European Business Wallet: digital identity, secure data exchange and legal notifications for simple, digital business (until 12.06.2025)
- Impact assessment on retention of data by service providers for criminal proceedings (until 18.06.2025)
- The EU Cybersecurity Act (until 20.06.2025)
- Digital product passport – rules for service providers (until 01.07.2025)
- Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act – speeding up decarbonisation (until 09.07.2025)
- European Data Union Strategy (until 18.07.2025)
- Proposal for an amendment to the Invest EU Regulation (until 18.07.2025)
- Omnibus Regulation Aligning product legislation with the digital age (until 20.07.2025)
- Omnibus Directive Aligning product legislation with the digital age (until 20.07.2025)
- Burden reduction and simplification for competitiveness of small mid-cap enterprises – Omnibus Directive (until 20.07.2025)
- Burden reduction and simplification for competitiveness of small mid-cap enterprises – Omnibus Regulation (until 20.07.2025)
- Mini omnibus for defence (until 20.07.2025)
- Vehicle safety – revising the EU’s roadworthiness package (until 20.07.2025)
- European grid package (until 05.08.2025)
- Consumer Agenda 2025-2030 and action plan on consumers in the Single Market (until 11.08.2025)
- 2026-2030 gender equality strategy (until 11.08.2025)
- Merger guidelines – review (until 03.09.2025)
Selections of the CW 22 (26.05.2025-01.06.2025)
Council:
The current preview of the Council’s work for the upcoming days until 08.06.2025 can be found here.
Summit and Ministerial Meetings:
This week, there are no Council meetings of relevance to the Internet industry.
Preparatory Bodies:
- Horizontal Working Party on Cyber Issues, 26.05.2025
- Political and Security Committee, 27.05.2025
- Working Party on Competitiveness and Growth – Better regulation, 27.05.2025, Agenda
- Working Party on Telecommunications and Information Society, 27.05.2025, Agenda
- JHA COUNSELLORS, 27.05.2025, Agenda
- COREPER I, 28.05.2025, Agenda
- COREPER II, 28.05.2025, Agenda
- Antici Gr. (Simplification), 28.05.2025
- JHA INFORMATION EXCHANGE, 28.05.2025, Agenda
An overview of the various Council dates can be found here.
Commission:
The agenda of the current Commission meeting was not available at our time of writing. You can potentially find it on the Commission’s website in the near future.
Parliament:
Plenary Sittings
There are no plenary sittings of the European Parliament taking place this week.
Here you can find a list of the upcoming dates of the European Parliament. The calendar of the plenary sittings for 2025 is available here (PDF).
Committees
LIBE Committee (Civil Liberties)
No meeting of the LIBE Committee is scheduled for this week.
The current timetables of the LIBE Committee can be found here.
JURI Committee (Legal Affairs)
No meeting of the JURI Committee is scheduled for this week.
The current timetables of the JURI Committee can be found here.
No meeting of the ITRE Committee is scheduled for this week.
The current timetables of the ITRE Committee (as of 12.05.2025) can be found here.
IMCO Committee (Internal Market)
No meeting of the IMCO Committee is scheduled for this week.
The current timetables of the IMCO Committee (as of 08.04.2025) can be found here.
CULT Committee (Culture and Education)
No meeting of the CULT Committee is scheduled for this week.
The current timetables of the CULT Committee can be found here.
Outlook:
An overview of the following session weeks can be found here. The provisional agenda for the upcoming plenary sittings can be found here.
European Court of Justice
You can find the judicial calendar of the CJEU here.
