Bolkestein revisited in the era of the sharing economy

Abstract

Back in 2015 the European Commission set the Digital Single Market as one of its key priorities. Sharing economy business models were one of the realities that the European Commission assessed last year, with the clear aim to examine whether new regulatory action at the EU level was necessary. After a thorough market study, the Commission concluded that existing EU rules are sufficient and that each type of business as well as each local reality may call for diverging regulatory solutions at the national level. To our mind, this is a sensible approach even if a whole universe of uncertainties remains. The ECJ shall play a crucial role in solving them on a case-by-case basis. For its guidance to be useful, the legal debate should rapidly drop the misleading “sharing” terminology, which does not allow an objective analysis of different realities that may need different regulatory solutions if we want to ensure a true level playing field.