On the European digital single market announcement by president Juncker, it is said that: The internet and digital technologies are transforming our world. But existing barriers online mean citizens miss out on goods and services, internet companies and start-ups have their horizons limited, and businesses and governments cannot fully benefit from digital tools. It's time to make the EU's single market fit for the digital age – tearing down regulatory walls and moving from 28 national markets to a single one. This could contribute €415 billion per year to our economy and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
Consistent with this discourse, creating the conditions for a vibrant digital economy and society is one of the key priorities in the agenda of the European Commission. It is not too much to expect that it will be placed at the top of the annual work programme for a number of years.
Therefore, to gain an –even elementary– knowledge of the status and functioning of digital markets becomes a necessity for anyone interested in researching the European economy. This challenge calls for a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach. The activity of the agents operating in digital markets is influenced by a number of different regulations and policies, global economic forces, technological developments, and social changes. Even without being required to be an expert in all these fields, it is an unavoidable step to perform a general assessment on how these factors are determining the development of European digital markets. This course aims to provide a basic understanding of these issues.
“The European Digital Market” is an optional course included in the second semester of the Economics/Politics speciality of the Máster Universitario en Unión Europea at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia.
