Spain

[ES] CNMC appointed as Digital Services Coordinator in Spain

IRIS 2024-3:1/25

Azahara Cañedo & Marta Rodriguez Castro

The Spanish National Markets and Competition Commission (Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia, CNMC) has been appointed by the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service as the Spanish Digital Services Coordinator.

This decision aligns with the requirements of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which demands the appointment of an independent authority with no ties to external influences, and with sufficient autonomy to manage its budget.

The CNMC is already responsible for supervising the audiovisual market (among other areas such as energy, postal services and transport) and for overseeing RTVE’s (Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española) compliance with its public service mission, due to the lack of a specific media authority in Spain. In addition to its current activities, the CNMC will take on the tasks of the Digital Services Coordinator, which revolve around ensuring that digital intermediaries and online platforms comply with the DSA. Thus, the CNMC is now responsible for requesting access to the data and algorithmic moderation and recommendation systems used by digital platforms, carrying out inspections where necessary and, finally, imposing fines in the event of infringements.

The CNMC will also be responsible for the certification of “trusted flaggers”, reliable and independent entities with expertise in the detection, identification and notification of illegal content. Trusted flaggers can notify illicit content to the Digital Services Coordinator, and due to their special status, their reports will be prioritised.


References

  • El Ministerio para la Transformación Digital y de la Función Pública designa a la CNMC como Coordinador de Servicios Digitales de España
  • https://www.cnmc.es/prensa/coordinador-servicios-digitales-20240124
  • The Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Services designates the CNMC as the Digital Services Coordinator in Spain

  • Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 October 2022 on a Single Market For Digital Services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC (Digital Services Act) (Text with EEA relevance)
  • https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/2065/oj

This article has been published in IRIS Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory.