For the second consecutive year, the European Association for Digital Transition is launching the ‘Save your zone’ campaign, an effort to raise awareness on the diminishing competition in business and the effects this has on various levels, such as activity in neighbourhoods, employment, and tax revenues.
With ‘Save your zone’ the EADT asks citizens and institutions to make a commitment on local businesses, whether physical or digital, contrary to what is offered by the big Internet platforms who, with a clear predatory intent, are destroying their competitors. They win thanks to their competent service, good prices, and very complete offer, but not only because of this. As the EADT has often reported, the big tech companies compete on an uneven playing field: their national rivals take on fiscal and labour obligations that big tech can evade through all sorts of strategies.
In contrast to them, the local business alternative creates employment and wealth in the territories themselves, as well as being a more sustainable choice from an environmental point of view.
How to defend local business
The distorted competition that is so favourable for the Internet giants must be corrected by the regulatory authorities, a task the EU has been working on for a long time, with great difficulties and an intense lobbying effort working against them. For their part, municipalities and other local authorities must defend and promote local businesses, who create employment and urban activity. And citizens must also do our part with our decisions, which is why the EADT is once again asking that Christmas shopping be done in nearby businesses. It’s a commitment to the urban makeup of European cities, to local employment, and to a fiscal model that allows certain social policy standards that are part of the European DNA to be maintained.
For the EADT, committing to local businesses means committing to a fair digital transition that respects fundamental European standards and values. The alternative is the disappearance of local urban businesses within a process of business concentration, which is happening in all areas. And this, in turn, also means loss of control over our data and, ultimately, of the economic, civic, and even political sovereignty of our European countries.
