European Commission takes action against six Member States for insufficient implementation of the Digital Service Act

The European Commission has decided to open infringement proceedings against six EU Member States – Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Portugal and Slovakia – for failing to appoint Digital Services Coordinators (DSCs) or provide them with sufficient powers. Under the DSA, member states were required to appoint DSCs by 17 February 2024.

While the designated DSCs are generally responsible for monitoring and enforcing compliance with the DSA by intermediary service providers in their territory, the EU Commission is primarily responsible only for monitoring the designated very large online platforms and very large online search engines. As a result, widespread enforcement of the DSA in the EU is largely dependent on the DSCs.

These infringement proceedings show once more the European Commission’s expectation that not only very large but all intermediary services shall be effectively supervised and underline the crucial importance of the implementation of the DSA on national level and the central role of regulatory measures to protect digital space especially in safeguarding the integrity of democratic processes. This is even more important in view of the upcoming European elections in June this year and the associated risk of disinformation campaigns.

As designations and empowerment and equipment of national DSCs continue to develop, check out our interactive guide for a comprehensive overview of the status quo in each Member State:

Access the guide here.

And if you would like to check for any remaining aspects of your holistic DSA compliance or need to respond to DSA enforcement measures by the national DSCs or European Commission, our DSA Taskforce is here to support you.

Authored by Anthonia Ghalamkarizadeh, and Janis Beckedorf.