EU Digital Omnibus Package Threatens to Gut GDPR and AI Act Protections

The European Commission published its Digital Omnibus Package on 19 November 2025, proposing sweeping amendments to six major digital laws including the GDPR and the AI Act under the banner of 'simplification' and 'competitiveness'. The package follows the September 2024 Draghi Report, which argued that EU regulation had raised data costs and hindered business competitiveness, calling for a radical simplification of the GDPR. Critics, including Amnesty International, European Digital Rights, and a coalition of 127 civil society organisations, have condemned the proposals as the largest rollback of digital rights in EU history. Research by Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl links several key changes in the package directly to lobbying documents submitted by Google, Meta, and Microsoft. The controversy has raised broader questions about whether rights-based digital governance can survive if the EU, its primary architect, retreats from the framework it pioneered.