Conversation with MEP Aura Salla

Dr Aura Salla, elected in June 2024 to her first mandate as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), is no stranger to EU policy, having worked for many years in the European Commission and for Meta, as the company’s head of EU affairs. She was also elected to the Finnish Parliament in 2023. Since taking up her seat in the European Parliament in July 2024, MEP Salla has advocated stronger EU support for Ukraine and a steady commitment to both the green transition and a more capable and competitive EU — in particular vis-à-vis China and in light of a second Trump administration. 

I spoke recently with MEP Salla (whom I will refer to here as Aura) about what she sees as the EU’s major challenges for the new mandate, in particular regarding technology and global competition. Here follows a brief summary of our conversation.

The EU, Aura believes, must urgently find ways to enable technology, including by enforcing current rules — rather than choke off efforts at technological innovation with the kind of tsunami of regulations which has too often in the past marked the EU’s approach.

This applies to the AI Act, which came into force in August 2024, with companies still uncertain what kind of regulatory environment they will actually face: including in terms of the delegated acts they will see from the Commission and the kind of sandboxes they will have to work with at the national level.

And it applies, too, to GDPR, which will come under review during this mandate. While no one wants to open a Pandora’s Box, Aura believes some streamlining will be needed, based on feedback from companies as well as customers. Some legislation — for instance the AI Liability Directive — should even be scrapped or pared back so as not to overlap or conflict with existing rules. We first need to know with certainty how the AI Act itself will be enforced, she thinks, including in different Member States.

Aura sees data as perhaps the most crucial building block of all for EU innovation. One key element is the kinds of meta data collected — say, in traffic reports — which EU rules make it hard for companies or agencies to use for AI training or as other productive catalysts, for fear the data could be re-personalised and traced back to individuals. On this, US companies are simply more flexible — and way ahead — and the EU should do better at learning from them and working with them.

On the question of flexibility, Aura observes, many commissioners-designate, during their confirmation hearings, seemed reluctant to speak boldly about deregulation — even though deregulation, in the form of simplification of rules and a streamlining and speeding up of bureaucratic processes, is exactly what Europe most needs for the single market to thrive.

This, then, raises a dilemma: how can career politicians and professional policymakers be convinced — and how can their institutions be steered, systemically — to whittle down legal obligations rather than pile on more? This is indeed the million-dollar question, Aura believes. She points out, too, that so many of the initiatives being talked about by incoming commissioners — around issues like digital or data fairness, for instance — have been under discussion already for many years. Some real breakthroughs are needed.

Another reform essential for unleashing the EU’s potential, she thinks, concerns money — in particular, where EU money comes from, and why. As negotiations for the next multiannual financial framework get underway soon, policymakers will need to be able to devote 20% of the EU’s budget to security and defence. This will mean rethinking what for decades has been the EU’s fundamental approach to cohesion, structural and social funds. It’s not enough, Aura believes, just to say that SMEs no longer have this or that reporting requirement; more concrete, more consequential, action will be needed: for example, in quicker licensing procedures. And she insists that no new rules should be proposed without a thorough impact assessment first.

At a bigger-picture, political level, Aura argues the whole discussion around the demands of the EU’s so-called ‘‘frugal’’ countries — and what Germany is doing, especially — is a rabbit hole Europe needs to climb out of. The bottom line is that to achieve greater EU leverage and capacity, the EU needs more own resources. One clear way to achieve this is through pollution taxation, as is being done now, but to an even greater degree: through carbon border taxes, for instance. A second is digital taxation. Aura believes the turnover taxation proposal put on the table is not really fair for small countries, since most of this revenue is being generated in bigger Member States; and balancing smaller and bigger Member States’ concerns will always be very important. But the proposal itself was ok, she thinks, and something to build on.  

Most counterproductive of all to EU innovation and productivity, Aura argues, are cohesion and even Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funds. The EU budget should rather be used for investment, as with the European fund for strategic investments (EFSI), during the Juncker Commission: to leverage and attract private money, with EU money bearing the greatest risk if a project doesn’t yield returns. And the lending capital of the European Investment Bank should be increased. To avoid building proverbial (and sometimes literal) roads to nowhere, viable businesses simply have to be involved from the start.

With regard to agriculture, Aura believes state-aid rules and food standards should be set at EU level — but not the actual subsidies themselves, which are best left to national or even local authorities to determine and disburse, since each regional government, for instance, would be most familiar with its own region’s unique products and environment. Funnelling everything through Brussels just makes everything more costly and inefficient, she argues. Such reforms become essential, too, with regard to potential further enlargement; otherwise virtually every current EU Member State would end up becoming a net-payer subsidising new entrants.  

Aura does not believe, however, that every line item in the EU budget should be decreased. Horizon, for instance, should actually be increased, she thinks (though with greater attention to defence and dual-use research, and simpler reporting requirements). The same goes for Erasmus+ — since a million Erasmus babies can’t be wrong!

Ultimately, Aura believes, having a competitive market means people being willing and able to follow the jobs. This is one area Finland is behind in, Aura observes, with many people believing the viability of every single village must be preserved. On the whole, only a very low 4% of EU citizens live and work in a Member State different from the one they were born in. Several EU Member States, it is true, are experiencing severe brain drain, even as huge skills gaps are also endemic elsewhere; teachers — too often undervalued to start with — often implement obsolete educational models, even as teachers themselves are getting older and older. Aura argues Europeans urgently need to see their Union as a single, integrated marketplace, including for both study and work.

In this regard, Aura does note important progress: the European Job Mobility Portal (EURES) is a place where every company can announce its open positions across the EU, including in every Member State (one million jobs are now available!). But it’s a huge leap for people to think about moving to a different country, to do plumbing or electrical work, for example; and this simply shouldn’t be the case. Of course one issue, Aura admits, is language, even though basic English is often adequate. Other issues are the integration of the EU’s banking sector and real estate markets — so that property in Finland, say, could serve as a guarantee against a mortgage in Belgium. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem, she explains: if there were a truly mobile labour force, then other kinds of capital would become more portable.

Looking at an even deeper existential issue: ‘‘climate crisis’’ is a phrase no one seems to want to use anymore, Aura laments, but one she insists must be stressed. For economic and climate security go hand in hand. Without a world where people can grow food, nothing else becomes possible either. The climate crisis is the root cause of mass migration, too. If Europe fails to solve this issue, she believes, the difficult intra-EU debate now taking place about how to save national car industries becomes obsolete.

Internationally, Aura wants to see real reciprocity. This goes for India (she serves on the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with India), which she sees as ahead of the EU in many ways on clean tech, and as presenting a huge opportunity for EU companies. It goes, too, for relations with US states, like California or New York, which have progressive climate policies. And it goes, ultimately, for relations with the US federal government, despite Europe’s real concerns vis-à-vis the incoming Trump administration. The main thing to accept about Trump, for Aura, is his valuation of money: if the EU is smart, then good trade deals with Trump become possible. It will be vital, Aura argues, to make sure Trump understands Europe is still in the game — even though Europe is lagging behind — and to find ways to effectively partner with US companies: foremost to harness the data essential for EU innovation. Ultimately, US companies in this regard, for Aura, are not simply replaceable with Chinese counterparts.

Finally, and returning to a central point Aura has underscored since her campaign to become an MEP: Ukraine must be supported in winning the war — and on Europe’s, not Trump’s, terms. The EU may not be able to change Trump’s thinking on climate or trade. So the EU must be able to leverage real strategic autonomy: with regard to raw materials; trade with new partners (hopefully in South America but especially in Asia, and with partners other than China); and the strength and attractiveness of the single market, so companies want to grow — and are able to grow — in Europe.

The EU has the potential to compete and lead, Aura believes, in an increasingly tense geopolitical landscape. But to do this Europe must come together and act strategically to maximise use of its resources and political clout. This is about the kinds of rules the EU sets, for itself and others. It’s about the money the EU earns and spends. And it’s about the EU’s ability to gather and use data: the building blocks of the cutting-edge technologies which will define the future.