Need to deregulate and cut red tape: Former European Parliament member Marietje Schaake

Schaake, International Policy Director of the Cyber Policy Center at Stanford University, acknowledged during her remarks at the Raisina Dialogue 2025 that deregulation and cutting red tape are necessary to boost competitiveness, but she argued that some regulation is essential to overcome differences between member states and provide easier access to capital for entrepreneurs.

"There's a lot of focus now on the need to deregulate and cut red tape, but the crux of the matter is that if you want easier access to capital for entrepreneurs, you will need to regulate to overcome differences between 27 member states. I think we've reached a point where one-liners will not do justice to that reality, and I would encourage everybody to ask many more critical questions about 'innovation for what' and 'regulation for what'," she said.

In the context of the EU's regulatory environment, Schaake's comments highlight the challenges of balancing innovation with regulation. The EU has been actively working to regulate tech companies, with initiatives like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and proposals for a Digital Services Act.

Schaake's statement underscored the importance of thoughtful regulation that promotes innovation while protecting citizens' rights. As the EU continues to evolve its regulatory framework, Schaake's call for nuanced thinking and critical questioning is timely and relevant.

Speaking in the session on the theme, "The Big Picture: The World in 50 Minutes", Marietje Schaake was not sympathetic to US tech companies, believing they have too much freedom to operate without democratic accountability.

"And we need not feel sorry for U.S. tech companies. They have a lot of space, too much space, if you ask me, to do as they please, that they are actually now governing many of us with the decisions that they make, but without a democratic mandate and without democratic accountability...," she said.

"American tech companies are more powerful and less regulated now than they have been over the past decades... when I hear that the Trump administration is going to have a deregulatory agenda vis-a-vis tech because there was hardly any regulation, what I miss in the discussion, where there's often a false dichotomy between innovation and regulation, is the question 'innovation for what' and 'regulation for what'."

In her remarks she highlighted that there is now emerging a "symbiotic relationship" in the US between Tech and polity. "We are now seeing a mantra coming out of the United States, both Silicon Valley and Washington, that is increasingly in a sort of symbiotic relationship where it's not even clear who is steering who anymore."

Speaking about where the roads to innovation will lead, Schaake said, "The idea that innovation is the highest goal in a society or of a government is false. Governments have multiple responsibilities to trade off against each other... think also about protecting fundamental rights, the public interest, and questions of who should be in charge of curating our information ecosystem... This whole idea that innovation is going to lead to the best outcomes without considering what else needs to be catered for and what the potential risks of that innovation are is a very dangerous narrative that I think will have ripple effects from Washington all over the world."

She highlighted how it was the AI CEOs, the tech CEOs, who warned about the breakthroughs in AI, which were reaching such dangerous levels that they were asking for regulation.

"This is less than two years ago. And now we have this deregulatory agenda. But similarly, I think a lot of the comments about regulation are very shallow. Regulation can lead us to all kinds of outcomes. It's politics whether we agree with one direction or the other", she said.

She delivered the remarks at the Raisina Dialogue, India's premier conference on geopolitics and geo-economics, which is organised by the Ministry of External Affairs. The 10th edition of the summit began on March 17, with today marking its conclusion.