Learnings from the Hearings: 12 Questions from the Hearings of European Commissioners-Designate

Stephen Wyber is Director of External Affairs at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, and sits on the Management Committee of the Knowledge Rights 21 Programme.

Over two weeks last month, all eyes in Brussels were on the hearings of the candidates designated by President Ursula von der Leyen for posts in the European Commission for 2024-2029.

Each of the 26 candidates not only submitted written responses to a series of questions but also took part in 3-hour-long sessions with relevant Parliament committees. These explored not only their readiness to take on the role and their ideas and plans for how to fulfill it but also the division of roles themselves and job titles chosen by President von der Leyen for her new team.

In effect, the discussions shed a brighter light on where the new Commission, which took office on December 1st, will focus, as well as some of the issues we’re likely to see prioritized by the European Parliament in the coming five years.

The overall signs are positive. In her speech at the European Parliament last Wednesday, November 27, Commission President von der Leyen stressed that the EU “will put research and innovation, science and technology at the heart of our economy.”

But what can we expect in detail concerning access to research, education, and culture – the areas on which my organization, Knowledge Rights 21, focuses? And how are issues pertinent to tech policy and broader concerns over AI, competition, intellectual property, and other issues reflected? Building on our analysis of the Mission Letters given to Commissioners designate, this article sets out 12 questions raised in the written answers and hearings for 9 different potential members of the Commission.

The full slate of Commissioners-designate is available on a special website, with the following Commissioners-designate covered in this article:

• Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, Executive Vice-President, Spain, Clean, Just and Competitive Transition
• Henna Maria Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President, Finland, Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy
• Stéphane Séjourné, Executive Vice-President, France, Prosperity and Industrial Strategy
• Roxana Mînzatu, Executive Vice-President, Romania, People, Skills and Preparedness
• Raffaele Fitto, Executive Vice-President, Italy, Cohesion and Reforms
• Valdis Dombrovskis, Commissioner, Latvia, Economy and Productivity, Implementation and Simplification
• Ekaterina Spasova Gecheva-Zaharieva, Commissioner, Bulgaria, Startups, Research and Innovation
• Michael McGrath, Commissioner, Ireland, Democracy, Justice and the Rule of Law
• Glenn Micallef, Commissioner, Malta, Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture and Sport

1. Is this the term that Europe takes seriously the risk of falling behind other parts of the world?

Already clear in the Mission Letters was the imperative of ensuring that Europe can keep up with China, the United States, Japan, and other parts of the world. This same concern arose in the hearings for Zaharieva, Ribera Rodríguez, Virkkunen, Séjourné, and Dombrovskis. All underlined a sense that we need to do more to ensure that Europe can maintain both growth and its social model.

Central to this, as underlined in particular by Dombrovskis, Ribera Rodríguez, and Séjourné, is a combination of moves both to advance regulatory simplification (a point made also strongly by Virkkunen) and to move further towards completing the Single Market.

Mario Draghi’s proposal for a competitiveness coordination tool appears set to be taken up, working to coordinate European and national policies to favor investment and growth. We also seem likely to see a reinforced SME and competitiveness check during impact assessment processes, as well as a strategy for start-ups and scale-ups, implementation dialogues with relevant sectors, and a proactive move to ‘stress-test’ the EU acquis to check for contradictions and overlaps.

This is a busy program, implying a lot more reviewing of existing legislation than the creation of new legislation. Potentially, it also represents a step away from seeking to pass legislation quickly in Europe in order to gain a ‘first mover’ advantage over competitors to one where the focus is more on simply being more competitive, using the scale of the Single Market to Europe’s advantage. We will need to see how the different processes set out work in reality of course.

2. The Commissioner responsible for research sees their role in competitiveness, but do others think the same?

A concern that Knowledge Rights 21 has underlined before is that, too often, the role of research in competitiveness – and in particular, universities and other research centers – is forgotten. The discourse separates research (associated with such centers) from innovation, which is connected to SMEs and so to wider competitiveness.

This has tended to leave research primarily ‘served’ by funding programs and efforts to build soft law, while innovation is a question for hard regulation. In reality, of course, there is no such clear line. SMEs can benefit from funding (for example, as security for loans), while research institutions are affected by regulation.

A positive step with the new Commission is the fact that these two sides are brought together, with one Commissioner – Zaharieva – responsible for both. In her hearing, she indeed made the connection between strengthening the fifth freedom and achieving wider competitiveness goals. She indicated that the strong focus on knowledge valorization and industry-academia collaborations would continue.

However, other Commissioners-designate did not even touch on the contribution that research makes, with many of the initiatives referenced in the previous section focused strongly on SMEs and other private actors.

Of course, it is not too late to resolve this. It is only logical to ensure that any updated SME and competitiveness check includes consideration of the impacts of planned laws on the research sector in general. Similarly, we would anticipate that any stress test of the acquis considers the needs of research and education institutions and that research actors are systematically part of implementation dialogues (and not just for legislation directly targeted at research).

3. Everyone agrees with the free movement of knowledge, but what do they mean?

Knowledge Rights 21 strongly welcomed the call in the Letta Report for a fifth freedom – the freedom of movement of knowledge – in order to advance the Single Market. This indeed aligns with called made in our own European Action Plan.

However, what this actually means remains a little vague. In Commissioner Zaharieva’s hearing, the immediate indication was that the focus would be on enabling researcher mobility. For example, this could be supported by facilitating transition between institutions, recognition of experience, and more. There is also strong support for European University Alliances, which bring together a defined set of institutions to collaborate.

However, there was arguably less about the free movement of scientific knowledge itself, despite this being the implication of the Letta recommendation. Perhaps Commissioner Virkkunen got closer when stressing the need for a Data Union to support access across borders.

Staying true to the original concept of the free movement of knowledge opens up a huge range of benefits, complementing those that come from researcher mobility and specific alliances. Fortunately, the report commissioned by the Directorate General for Research, Technology and Development offers a strong evidence base for making sure that the EU stays true to the concept of a fifth freedom.

4. With both a European Research Area Act and European Innovation Act on the cards, how will subjects be divided?

The fact of going from zero to two pieces of planned legislation explicitly focused on research and innovation is, of course, to be welcomed, although it will mean that the next years will be busy for the relevant teams in the European Commission. However, this does raise the question of how topics and potential actions will be distributed between the two.

This is not a purely theoretical question, given the concern set out above that research and innovation are too often dealt with in isolation, forgetting the strong and obvious links between them. As such, it will be essential to ensure that the two pieces of legislation are coordinated and crucially deliver legislative measures that benefit basic research, knowledge valorization and transfer, and wider innovation alike.

It would be a missed opportunity, in particular, for a European Research Area Act to continue to look only at questions around funding and researcher mobility and forget the need to protect the rights of researchers and their institutions to carry on their work in a digital age. Similarly, a European Innovation Act must be clear that any moves to reduce burdens and facilitate the development and spread of new ideas also benefit research institutions fully.

5. What about the free movement of education?

Education was admittedly less developed as a theme in the discussions held across the different hearings, with it being pointed out that Commissioner Mînzatu does not even have education in her title. A number of MEPs indeed underlined annoyance with this, although it should be noted that education remains a competence jealously guarded by national governments.

Nonetheless, there were a few useful points which offer some promise. First of all, there is Commissioner Mînzatu’s ambition to establish a European Schools Alliance to encourage cross-border collaboration, as well as to support more European University Alliances and European Inter-University Campuses. In particular on the latter, she highlighted the hope to ‘provide students with access to a richer and better education offer, in cooperation with research departments and businesses’.

Of relevance in particular to libraries, too, is the focus on supporting non-formal and informal learning centres to work more effectively, both amongst themselves and with other parts of the education system.

There is, therefore, some hope for a stronger focus on allowing educators to work together effectively and at least a basis for arguing that actions in other spaces – not least copyright and other information regulation – support this goal.

6. Is Open Science missing?

A slightly more concerning point, given the European Commission’s excellent record on this so far, were the very limited references to the importance of open access and open science.

Of course, to some extent, this is likely to be followed up in the context of the next European Research Area Policy Agenda, where open science already features strongly as an area for work. Moreover, the Council of Ministers has also consistently been active in advancing the agenda.

However, this suggests the need to engage the Commissioner (who, in the end, comes from a regional development rather than a research background) to underline the huge role open access and science play in research productivity and impact. Moreover, it will be necessary to stress that open science and access benefit strongly from a supportive legislative framework that enables the community to advance. An example of such a supportive mechanism would be legislating for secondary publication rights.

7. Research in every part of the Union, but how?

With Commissioner-designate Zaharieva coming to Brussels with a background in regional development policy, it is not surprising that the topic of how to support researchers and institutions in all parts of the Union came up.

In her written answers, she linked her work on research and innovation to the wider cohesion agenda, as well as underlining the desire for a seamless environment for research. In the hearing, she then talked about the need to have a truly EU-wide ecosystem, including the possibility to cooperate regardless of where a researcher is in Europe.

Similarly, the designated Commissioner leading on regional development, Rafael Fitto, also made reference to this, recalling the idea of smart specialization and the need to develop and enhance research and innovation capacities.

However, there was relatively little focus on how this could be done other than implicitly through funding support. Clearly, breaking down barriers to collaboration offers the opportunity for more researchers to continue working where they are rather than having to move. There is a real opportunity here to enable more research to take place in less wealthy/more peripheral regions of Europe if we get information regulation right.

8. Will the EU be ready to protect library users as consumers?

The last term of the Parliament and Commission saw an ambitious program of legislation intended to uphold consumer rights in the digital environment. Nonetheless, the sense of there being unfinished business came out strongly in the hearings, in particular that for Commissioner-designate McGrath.

He has been requested to develop a Digital Fairness Act, with some ingredients of this, focused on advertising to children, use of dark patterns and addictive design already on the table. However, there were a number of references to the need to be more comprehensive, also helpfully underlined by other MEPs.

A big concern for Knowledge Rights 21 is the denial of people’s rights to access research, education, and culture through libraries. Because libraries and other institutions are not people, they do not benefit from the same protections against contract terms that disadvantage them.

It will be important to underline from early on that a major gap in the EU’s protection of consumers in the digital environment is its failure to protect institutions that consumers rely on to meet their needs and enjoy their rights. Research and education institutions, including libraries, need the possibility to disapply unfair contract terms, including those that override limitations and exceptions to copyright.

9. Does a new approach to competition offer a solution to dysfunctioning library markets?

In addition to the wider focus on competitiveness highlighted above, there was an interesting reference in the answers provided by Commissioner-designate Ribera Rodríguez to her approach to competition implementation.

She highlighted that the traditional approach, focused on the behaviors of individual companies, has its limits as a way of addressing all relevant issues. In light of this, she wanted to look at market function in a new way, focusing particularly on structural problems in markets that can give rise to excessive dependencies or consumer vulnerability.

Over and above this, she recalled the concept of digital gatekeepers that had been high on the agenda in the previous Parliament (and looks to remain so), as well as noting work to understand better what exclusionary and exploitative abuses could look like.

These references are welcome, given that, as KR21 underlines, we are concerned that the structure of digital content markets leaves libraries in a position of weakness, with access to needed content either denied or only possible under tough terms. This is possible due to the lack of protection for libraries and other research and education institutions. We hope this new approach to competition takes full account of these markets, leading to changes that benefit those who count on libraries and other institutions for access to research, education, and culture.

10. How committed is the Commission to becoming an AI continent?

The Mission Letters issued by President von der Leyen made clear that for her and her Commission as a whole, it is a priority to ensure that Europe keeps up with the world both on AI innovation and adoption. With much AI research work taking place in public research institutions, often in collaboration with industry partners, the possibility of applying AI tools and training AI in the research sector is an area of focus for KR21.

A number of Commissioners-designate echoed the emphasis on more use and production of AI. Zaharieva noted the planned AI Research Council, as well as efforts to promote the use of AI in science. Virkkunen, too, wanted to lower barriers to AI adoption, launch an AI and Cloud Development Act, and advance towards a Data Union in order to facilitate data availability for training purposes. The incoming Culture Commissioner, Glenn Micallef, also promoted a positive approach, implicitly warning against being conservative or rejectionist in the face of AI.

Nonetheless, when pushed on the question by the representative of the Legal Affairs Committee, Virkkunen nonetheless reiterated the place of the possibility for rightsholders to opt-out of the use of their materials in AI training and to encourage licensing instead. This perhaps points to growing concern about the use of the opt-out leading to poorer available training data, but of course, appears to see licensing as a solution, and also the idea that revenues to rightsholders may be more of a priority than AI development.

The concern is that such solutions risk leading to a situation that favors larger players who are able to pay while disadvantaging smaller ones, including, of course, research institutions involved in research-industry collaborations. Meanwhile, we continue to see examples of rightsholders trying to prevent research institutions from applying AI (for example, requiring them not to allow the use of AI tools to analyze texts), directly frustrating the EU’s broader goals.

To support AI research and uptake, it would be far better to apply the same approach to questions around AI and copyright as it does to other aspects and focus more on where there are risks of harmful outcomes. Any proposed use of licensing models needs to be assessed in terms of its impact on the quality of data available, and the impact on smaller players, including research institutions.

11. A missed opportunity around access to culture?

The Mission Letter to Commissioner-designate Micallef highlighted the need to work on access to culture, in particular for young people. This is, of course, a positive goal and one that KR21 shares, believing that this is not only a fundamental right in itself but also an enabler of innovation, creativity, and broader participation.

However, there is relatively little detail on how this will be achieved, with the detail very much left to the proposed Culture Compass action plan. The only specific indication of tools to do this are the DiscoverEU program (which provides financial support for young people to travel) and a general reference to AI enabling access.

A key barrier to access to culture are the rules which make it difficult for libraries and others to offer the same sort of possibilities to enjoy and engage online as they do in person. The 2019 Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM) intended to facilitate this by making it possible to put out-of-commerce works online. However, the effectiveness of this depends either on there not being a relevant collecting society or, if there is one, that it is ready to offer relevant licenses. With the review of the DSM Directive due in 2026, there will be a chance to look back at whether this has worked.

In the meanwhile, we can hope that enabling libraries to operate in the same way online as they do in person will feature in Commissioner-designate Micallef’s plans.

12. Are we re-opening the Copyright Directive or not?

One of the biggest questions on many people’s minds is whether we will see a major copyright reform under this Commission. As highlighted above, the review of the 2019 DSM Directive is due in 2026, and this will be a major area of focus for anyone involved in these discussions.

But will this lead to change? Commissioner-designate Micallef appeared to deflect questions about whether reforms, focusing rather on continuing to apply the Directive as it stands now. Commissioner-designate Virkkunen told a different story, underlining “I would consider the need to further improve the EU copyright framework to address new challenges raised by market and technology developments.”

She then goes on to say, “I would make sure that any new measures proposed to improve the EU copyright framework strike a balance between stimulating human creativity and supporting the development of emerging technologies, without creating undue regulatory complexity.” Finally, she fires the starting pistol on engagement around copyright by saying, “we have to consider what new improvements are needed now.”

This line is similar to that advanced in other fora (in particular by MEP Axel Voss, who, in a separate question, indeed warned against strict application of the General Data Protection Regulation where this could hold back the development of AI).

Given that Virkkunen is higher in the hierarchy, this may well imply that despite previous resistance to re-opening the copyright acquis, we may be in for a busy term around copyright. This will raise key questions about how to protect the interests and activities of research, educational and cultural institutions and avoid further fragmentation of the acquis.

Cautious optimism

In conclusion, the hearings and responses to written questions indicate that there is an opening towards ensuring a better consideration of the needs of the researchers, learners, educators and readers who depend on libraries and other institutions. Nonetheless, while there is a foothold, success is far from guaranteed, and there are also potential threats along the way.

We will need to be attentive and active in our advocacy in order to ensure that this mandate is remembered as one of the positive steps towards effective and inclusive access to research, education, and culture and so a more competitive, fairer Europe.