Last week (April 22-25), PPI returned to Europe for an intensive round of high-level meetings and one big public event in three capitals, Paris, Brussels and Berlin. It was the third PPI project in Europe in the last 18 months, a sign of our commitment to increasing awareness about the rise of the data-driven economy and its implications for policymakers.
PPI has long been a catalyst for transatlantic dialogue since we helped Bill Clinton and Tony Blair launch the “Third Way” conversations among progressive leaders. Most recently, our work in Europe has centered on measuring the volume and economic value of cross-border data flows.
Our focus last week was mainly on digital trade, and the need to fend off some truly bad proposals in Europe that would at a minimum erect barriers to cross-border data flows, and at a maximum balkanize the Internet by creating an exclusively European cloud. At a time when both America and Europe are plagued by slow economic growth, any actions that would choke off digital innovation and trade make little sense.
To underscore the point, we led a bipartisan “Digital Trade Study Group” consisting of 10 senior Senate and House staffers with expertise in digital policy issues to Europe. They learned much about European attitudes toward data protection and privacy – including the emotional response to the NSA revelations, especially in Germany – and the presence of a bipartisan group of knowledgeable Hill staff impressed upon the European officials we met that Congress has a growing interest in resolving disputes over trade in general and digital trade in particular. From the feedback we’ve received, the trip was a big success.
Here are some highlights:
- In Paris, the Study Group met with economic researchers with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This meeting made clear that no one has developed a way to accurately capture and measure the contribution of data-driven innovation and trade to economic growth. As Michael Mandel, PPI’s chief economic strategist, has noted in a series of groundbreaking reports on the measurement challenge, this makes it difficult for policymakers to weigh the likely effects of new regulations. In a second session, the group discussed the OECD’s work on tax base erosion. The G-20 has tasked the OECD to explore ways to prevent international companies from sheltering profits and income from national tax collectors.
- In Brussels, our traveling party met with several high-ranking EU officials who discussed the progress of the transatlantic trade agreement (TTIP), data protection and how Europeans view the crisis in Ukraine. Additionally, our group was briefed by U.S. officials on digital trade issues and received a preview of the upcoming European election.
- Also in Brussels, PPI teamed up with the Lisbon Council for a major public event on these themes featuring EU and U.S. trade officials, as well as economists and representatives from European businesses. At that event, we released a joint report co-authored by PPI’s Michael Mandel and Lisbon Council’s Paul Hofheinz on “Bridging the Data Gap: How Digital Innovation Can Drive Growth and Jobs.” It highlighted a large and growing “data gap” between the U.S. and the EU that ought to give Europeans pause.
- We concluded our trip in Berlin, where long-time PPI friend John Emerson, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, kindly hosted us for an insightful breakfast briefing on U.S.-German relations. Next the group met with a representative of Bitkom, the major association of the digital industry in Germany. Our last event was a dialogue with German political, business and intellectual leaders organized by Das Progressive Zentrum, a Berlin think tank. Focusing on the need to rebuild trust between America and Germany in the wake of the Snowden revelations, it was a blunt, intense and illuminating conversation.
This trip was extremely productive and highlighed that PPI is building an extensive network of European contacts and partners who share our commitment to finding common ground on questions of trade, digital innovation and stronger economic growth.
