The European Union faces a fundamentally new challenge today. After the last sixty years of the integration process were essentially characterized by internal challenges such as the “Crisis of the Empty Chair,” Eurosclerosis, and the financial crisis, the focus today is increasingly on international politics. In a variety of policy areas – from the fight against hate speech to respect for autonomous weapons systems, or from the debate on banning facial recognition or regulating artificial intelligence – international and domestic rulemaking processes can hardly be separated these days. China, the US, Russia, and Europe are all now engaged in an intense regulatory competition in which different normative models are mediated through global market processes and international political regulatory instances.

The globalization of European data protection regulations (e.g., the General Data Protection Regulation), the pursuit of accountability regulations for online platforms (e.g., in Germany, the NetzDG), and the promotion of rule-of-law-oriented, precautionary technology governance in the area of artificial intelligence are clear.