The European Union has a “zealous focus” on regulation and will be unable to build tech giants of its own without a digital single market, Nick Clegg has warned.
Speaking at the Web Summit on Thursday, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs said the European Union needed to open up its borders to allow tech firms to trade unobstructed across the bloc.
“They (US and China tech giants) have very large domestic markets and a lot of borderless unfettered domestic markets," he said, insisting that tech companies in Europe did not enjoy the same freedom to trade.
“A start-up in Lisbon simply cannot operate in Finland, Germany or Slovenia in a seamless way,” he said.
“In a way that an American or Chinese start-up can cross their domestic markets because of licencing agreements, intellectual property agreements,and all sorts of different obstacles.”
When asked if Brexit meant the UK would be given an advantage over the bloc, Clegg said he suspected the “reverse” would happen: “I see no sign that the UK is going to use its departure from the European Union necessarily to either restore access to this huge market hinterland."
The former deputy prime minister also called on US President-elect Joe Biden to unite the internet’s “regulatory planets” of India and the European Union against the influence of China.
The US trade war with China escalated this year as President Donald Trump pressured other countries to pick sides. Many countries in Europe, for example, followed the US push to ban Huawei from parts of their phone networks this year, sparking outrage from the Chinese networks giant. Other countries, like South Africa, have resisted.
“From Joe Biden’s point of view, there really is a fundamental sort of question, which is: What can he do to emphasise American leadership, to reinforce and buttress the open internet?” Clegg said. “America will be best placed to exert its own influence in this space by doing so hand-in-glove, particularly, with the European Union and India.”
Facebook is also fighting a growing backlash from politicians against big tech companies. The mistrust risks “disabling” new ways of using data that will fuel the economy as well as innovation in medicine, health and education for years to come, Clegg said.
Mr Clegg added that it was time for laws on how the content on Facebook was viewed to be “updated and adapted”.
“I think the truth is a company that Facebook is neither like a conventional publisher, it’s just it’s just a sort of, I just think it’s a ludicrous parallel because it’s billions of ordinary people posting what they like to whom they like,” he said.
“On the other hand, it’s equally true that Facebook is not just some inert pipelines or some inert utility, it is somewhere in between.”
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