Netflix could stop Brexit.
The European Commission proposed or approved three laws this year aimed at the hearts and minds of the masses: two to improve consumer rights for online purchases, another to give Europeans the freedom to travel and access their Internet services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. A ban on mobile roaming charges was also finally approved.
The feel-good legislative push comes as the European Union bears witness to right-wing politicians, resistance to migrants and a looming vote on U.K. membership in the bloc.
Raise the curtain on the EU’s counter-offensive.
“Perhaps it will lead to a higher level of acceptance among some Euroskeptics,” Günther Oettinger, the commissioner for the digital single market, acknowledged when he unveiled a proposal this week to allow consumers to access their online subscriptions to apps, music and TV services from anywhere in the European Union.
The Commission is willing to bear industry criticism to get people on its side.
The proposal for online content portability (translation: accessing Netflix on holiday), for example, was released before the Commission closed the door on public comments on potential legislation on Internet platforms.
That had a coalition of news publishers, digital rights activists, startups and Internet service providers up in arms. “The Commission is set to adopt a communication on copyright on 9th December, which covers these issues, before the end of the consultation and a proper analysis of the contributions received,” they wrote in a letter to Frans Timmermans, EC first vice president.
Nevertheless, the Commission wants to implement its Internet content portability proposal by mid-2017 — coinciding with the end for EU mobile phone roaming charges.
The geopolitical pressure is not lost on lawmakers.
“All of these issues — the debt crisis, how to deal with the war in Syria and the people fleeing it, how to make sure that we don’t have nationalist tendencies as a false solution, unemployment — these are real problems,” said Marietje Schaake, a Dutch Liberal member of the European Parliament who worked on the ban on roaming charges. “There’s a lot of people turning away and not trusting politicians or Europe. We have a lot of serious challenges.”
“The benefits of a true digital single market would be huge. It is about making life for people a little bit easier,” she added. “It’s all the little things. They may pale in comparison to the bigger questions of safety, foreign policy and defense, but they make things better for people and make what we’re doing tangible for people.”
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said the Internet content potability reforms are a key example of why the country should stay in the EU. “The U.K. has been pushing for a digital single market that delivers for consumers across the EU … These proposals deliver just that.”
Even Sajid Javid, U.K. secretary of state for business and a Euroskeptic, acknowledged: “We have been calling for people to be able to use their online media services like Netflix and Amazon Prime anywhere they travel to in the EU.”
Tangible wins could get the public on board, and drive the Euroskeptic bloc crazy.
“We know that Number 10 is now instructing all government departments to come up with positive stories on the EU,” said Paul Stephenson, communications director at Vote Leave, a pro-Brexit lobby.
For veterans in Brussels, the strategy looks familiar.
The Commission led by President Jean-Claude Juncker isn’t the first to try the tactic. The ban on mobile roaming charges was conceived by the previous Commission, as was the limit on ATM fees.
But as the vote on the U.K.’s membership in the EU approaches, there may never have been a more crucial time to show consumers the value of being in a 28-country bloc.
“Consumer protection changes are the things which people tend to see most immediately or benefit from, sometimes without even knowing it, almost immediately,” said Richard Corbett, a pro-EU British MEP from the Socialists and Democrats group. “And they’re real reforms, not cosmetic things like reinterpreting the preamble to a treaty.”
The issue, Corbett argued, is in getting the message out about the EU’s reforms.
“It’s difficult for commissioners,” Corbett conceded. “In any country people will say: ‘Who are these people from Brussels telling us what to do?’ It’s really the politicians who have to stick their neck out. You need some with the courage to do that.”
David Meyer contributed to this report.