Closing the EU Enforcement Gap - Three steps to make digital rules count in practice

The EU has built the world's densest digital rulebook but cannot enforce it: 171 laws, 315 EU-level bodies, and enforcement that bends under political pressure. This Strategy Note, written with Maria Koomen, presents a sequenced reform to overcome those deficits. A cooperation forum in 2027, the transformation of HaDEA into an independent Digital Enforcement Agency within the next EU budget, and a larger treaty reform thereafter. Published ahead of the Commission's Digital Fitness Check, as a starting point for debate.

This Strategy Note diagnoses the EU's problems to enforce its digital rulebook and charts a sequenced path for closing that enforcement gap. It argues that failure is structural rather than incidental, resting on five root causes: geopolitical exposure, politicised accountability, governance fragmentation, resource shortfalls, and national interests. Reviewing the reform proposals currently on the table in Brussels, it concludes that concepts to establish coordination mechanisms are legally sound but institutionally weak, while plans to build independent enforcement authorities remain constitutionally fragile without EU treaty change.

The paper proposes three steps in strict sequence: first, an EU Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum modelled on the UK DRCF and built on existing EDPS infrastructure; second, the transformation of HaDEA into a Digital Enforcement Agency within the 2028-2034 MFF, founded on Article 114 TFEU and bounded to satisfy the Meroni doctrine; third, broader EU treaty-level reform anchoring fully independent enforcement across the Digital Single Market. It is published ahead of the Commission's Digital Fitness Check, expected in Q1.2027, and aims to trigger a larger policy debate on an area of digital policy-making that has so far been overlooked.

Zenner, K. and Koomen, M. (2026): Closing the EU Enforcement Gap - Three steps to make digital rules count in practice. Strategy Note, 1 September 2026.

Download the paper here:

The paper can also be accessed via SSRN here.

See also articles from Euronews ("EU needs European digital agency to close enforcement gap, experts say") written by their Chief Political Correspondent Luca Bertuzzi, from Euractiv (Morning Tech Newsletter "THE HACK") written by Maximilian Henning, and from MLex ("EU needs a new central agency to enforce its digital rules, experts say").