EU Data Institutionalism: A New Compass for an Old Circle?

Does it make sense to talk in terms of EU data institutionalism to identify a novel institutional program of the EU? Which is the added value of data in the institutional mechanisms? This article seeks to respond to these questions reflecting upon the regulatory power exerted by the EU with regards to all aspects of data governance within the internal market and the external dimension. It discusses the concept of data institutionalism, whether this refers to a holistic architecture put in place by Europe in the realm of data regulation and to what extent it depends on the variable geometry built upon regulatory cooperation and digital trade but also on the power of data flows and data-driven processes per se. The paper argues that the pole position gained by the EU as global regulator does not exhaust all possibilities of digital institutionalism and that its broader conceptualization instead offers some points of reflection to better understand the implications of the EU’s institutional approach to data.