Il Digital Ominbus tra competitività economica e arretramento delle garanzie fondamentali

Sommario

Abstract

This contribution critically examines the Digital Omnibus Proposal presented by the European Commission on 19 November 2025 (COM(2025) 837 final), with a view to assessing whether the reform proposal contained therein achieves an effective consolidation and rationalisation of the European Union’s digital acquis, or whether, under the guise of regulatory simplification, it introduces deregulatory dynamics capable of affecting the balance between economic competitiveness and the protection of fundamental rights.
The analysis focuses on the main amendments proposed to Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and the ePrivacy framework, assessing their systemic impact on European data and artificial intelligence governance.
Particular attention is devoted to the use of the omnibus legislative technique, examined both in relation to previous applications within the Union legal order and in light of the absence of an adequate impact assessment, as an essential requirement for the constitutional legitimacy of the regulatory intervention.
The question is whether the Digital Omnibus exceeds the scope of a merely technical or coordinating revision, configuring itself rather as an extensive reconsideration of the European digital acquis. From this perspective, the expansion of subjective derogations, the introduction of new legal bases for the processing of personal data, and the reshaping of core obligations concerning transparency, accountability and enforcement appear likely to determine a reduction in the level of protection of fundamental rights, without sufficiently clear superior public interest requirements emerging to justify such compression.
In conclusion, the promise of regulatory simplification risks, in the absence of adequate counterbalances, translating into a rollback of the safeguards that have traditionally characterised the European model of digital regulation.