A Regulator Caught Between Conflicting Policy Objectives Reflections on the European Commission's Role as DSA Enforcer

The Digital Services Act (DSA) has landed on an increased centralization of its enforcement powers in the hands of the European Commission (EC). The Regulation grants the Commission exclusive supervision and enforcement powers vis-à-vis the biggest platforms and online search engines for their most important due diligence obligations. This analysis focuses on the implications, from a fundamental rights and democratic values perspective, of opting for the EC as the body in charge of supervising and enforcing the DSA against the most powerful online platforms. Given the importance and broader implications of the DSA, the policy choice of making the EC the most important enforcer in the DSA architecture needs to be scrutinized more, especially where the centralization of enforcement powers around the EC may become recurrent in future pieces of legislation. In particular, aspects that deserve more attention relate to the difference between the EC and a separate independent EU supervisory authority and to the tensions inherent to the different policy objectives pursued by the EC, which might impact the way it performs its oversight tasks under the DSA.