New Regulatory Approaches under the EU’s Legislation on Digitalisation: Introduction to the Special Edition of the EJRR “Charting the Landscape of Automation of Regulatory Decision-Making”

his introductory article outlines three fundamental regulatory developments in the EU’s legislation
addressing digitalization and automation of decision-making: One is that across many acts we see a
move towards more complex multi-level composite procedures, involving not only public structures
with agencies, EU bodies, national agencies, but also co-regulation through standardisation in
combination with – in several areas – audited self-regulation. A second feature of much of the
current legislation in digital matters is that obligations imposed therein require an increased
attention to information management – from sourcing to use, dissemination, sharing. This is a
requirement for both public and private actors imposing ever more ‘granular’ knowledge and
reporting of information flows in economic operators. A third is the growing role of interoperability
which is being firmly established as a tool to create data exchange possibilities The diverse
regulatory tools and methods are creating complex networks of legal relations and obligations which
appear difficult to submit to oversight and compliance without strong protection of individual rights
and procedural structures ensuring their enforcement.