re:publica: Big questions, few answers

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If there is one common thread that has run through all re:publica events since its debut in 2007, it is the demand for better digital policy. Founded at a time of ostentatious political ignorance towards the “new media,” re:publica has now become an integral part of the cabinet's calendar: the federal government is doing itself a favor.

Over the three days, three current cabinet members came to “Station Berlin,” an old post office depot at Gleisdreieck in Kreuzberg: Labor Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD), Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger (CDU), and Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU). One question currently on everyone's mind: Will artificial intelligence (AI) make everyone unemployed – or just replace some human capabilities?

Government visits the bubble

This is a concern for Federal Labor Minister Bas. Just as the gas lantern lighter disappeared with electrification and new market power emerged, the question with AI will be: How can the development of such a new technology be steered and regulated, harnessing opportunities and curbing risks?

However, Bas did not want to draw any concrete conclusions during her appearance – except for her sympathy for a kind of digital tax. This, at least, would have to be European. The fact that power should not be exercised without limits, not even by technology corporations, remained undisputed in this abstraction at the conference in Berlin.

Prien had come to talk about, among other things, a minimum age for social media. Child and youth protection is extensively regulated, but the instruments are not sufficiently enforced, said the Family Minister. Children and adolescents are being made ill – to an extent that would never be permitted in the analog world.

“We need an overall strategy”

Prien does not want to stop at a minimum age. “We will not solve this with one measure but need an overall strategy that focuses on empowerment, participation, and protection,” argues Prien.

Platform supervision also plays a role, for which the EU Commission sees itself as responsible, emphasized Renate Nikolay from the EU Commission on Tuesday. However, the EU member states must legally establish a minimum age in their legislation.

“We need to ensure that the increased monitoring takes place with the platforms and not with the children and adolescents,” says Prien. In July, an expert group commissioned by the EU Commission will present its findings on what measures could be sensible.

The fact that the enforcement of individual rights in a digitized society is a challenge and the protection of fundamental rights is by no means a matter of course occupied many of the participants in Berlin in very different ways. From digital sovereignty in AI and clouds to the question of accountability for the use of Palantir software and the Interior Minister's wishes for the AI-ification of security authorities, these were just some digital policy topics at this re:publica.

But doesn't the EU have a tightly woven regulatory protection regime – often lamented by the business side? Austrian data protection activist Max Schrems described how large the gap is between the perceived and actual enforcement of European law. For example, with algorithms, he said, nothing is checked at all – even where data protection law has long allowed it.

Unlike, for instance, workplace safety, where much is controlled for good reasons, algorithms at large corporations are not examined at all, said Schrems. This cannot end well in the long run. He expects that sooner or later all supervisory authorities in Europe will be centralized because the current distribution is not working.

Albrecht von Sonntag, who has gained experience over years of legal disputes against market power abuse by large US providers with the price comparison platform Idealo, was not necessarily in favor of this. The member states are too different for that. The EU Commission would logically only take up cases of central, cross-border significance.

But that is by no means a simple undertaking, said von Sonntag. The lobby of the US digital corporations has been excellently organized for a long time, argues von Sonntag. But the clumsiness with which it is now being protected by the US government is new, says the founder of the price comparison portal, which belongs to the Springer group.

Little optimism

The EU Commission points to the numerous proceedings it has initiated under the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA). These proceedings must be legally sound and therefore take time, said Renate Nikolay, Deputy Director-General of the EU Commission's Connect Directorate-General.

So, almost 20 years after the first small blogosphere gathering, re:publica was by no means unpolitical. But despite the motto (“Never gonna give you up”), given the developments, there was little optimism to be felt this year. At least: by 2026, no politician will be flirting with the idea that they have no personal understanding of the internet and digitalization.

(mho)