Legislative Processes & Focus Topics
In the 2025 financial year, eco was actively involved in numerous legislative initiatives and political processes. With 58 different position papers, the Policy, Law & Regulations division contributed to a range of political debates.
In 2025, the Policy, Law & Regulations team worked to ensure that the new German federal government established a Ministry of Digitalisation, which was indeed established during the government formation process. For the first time, the coalition agreement also included positive measures for the data centre sector in Germany.
The requirements of the German Energy Efficiency Act are to be reviewed, regulation aligned with European framework conditions, and the sector further developed through a data centre strategy. With the coalition agreement, the partners have thus fulfilled key demands made by eco, which it had consistently advocated in recent years.
Specifically, the Policy, Law & Regulations division addressed the following legislative initiatives and policy measures:
Responsibility:
- Strengthening private legal enforcement on the Internet (Act against Digital Violence)
- Internal Security Strategy of the European Union
- Online piracy during live broadcasts
- Interstate Treaty on Gambling and network blocking
- Data retention in Germany
- Digital Media Interstate Treaty
- Draft act on political advertising
- European Commission’s Civil Society Strategy
- Implementation of the e-Evidence Regulation in Germany
- CSAM Regulation and Directive
- Digital Fairness Act
- Digital Services Act
Connectivity and Infrastructure:
- Key points of the German Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation (BMDS) on the amendment to the German Telecommunications Act (TKG)
- Monopoly Commission’s Sector Report on the telecommunications sector
- EU Commission’s Digital Networks Act
- Germany Stack
- German federal government’s Data Centre Strategy
- German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) report on the state of development of data centre locations in Germany
- EU Cloud & AI Development Act
Competitiveness of the Digital Economy:
- Data Act Implementing Act
- EU Commission’s Apply AI Strategy
- EU Commission’s Data Union Strategy
- Data protection-compliant use of AI models for the German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI)
- Product liability law
- Act on the Implementation of the AI Regulation in Germany
Security:
- NIS2 Implementation and Cybersecurity Strengthening Act
- European Commission’s Cybersecurity Act
- KRITIS Umbrella Act
In addition, in the run-up to the federal elections, eco published the Internet Policy Agenda 2025–2029, as well as position papers on the structure of the Ministry of Digitalisation and on digital sovereignty.
