EU promises a law on addictive apps this autumn. Most such promises came that year.
On 16 September Ursula von der Leyen promised an EU law banning social media for under-13s and, this autumn, a wider law on addictive app design.
What happened
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used her State of the Union address on to promise a draft law banning social media for children under 13, with supervised mini accounts for 13 to 15 year olds, and said the Digital Fairness Act would be put forward this year.
Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, gave her State of the Union speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on . She said the Commission would propose the EU Kids Act the next day.
Under the plan, children aged 13 to 15 would get only mini accounts set up by a parent, limited to one hour a day. Platforms would also have to prove their services are safe for children.
In the same speech she said addictive design harms adults as well as children. She promised a wider law, the Digital Fairness Act, in the autumn.
The Commission’s own plan already lists it for late 2026. That plan, its work programme for 2026, was published in and names the act as a proposal for new law in the last three months of the year.
A Commission proposal is only the first step. Both laws must then be agreed by the European Parliament and by the governments of the 27 member states before they apply. Parliament’s remaining weeks of full sittings this year start on , , , and .
Sources: The Guardian, European Commission, Politico Europe
The Pattern
Six of the last eight such promises became proposals that year. We looked at State of the Union speeches from 2010 to 2025 for promises to propose a new EU law within the same year. We checked whether the Commission formally proposed it within 31 days, within 90 days and by . The eight most recent promises came from six speeches, because in 2015 and 2016 the president made two at once. Three presidents made them: José Manuel Barroso, Jean-Claude Juncker and Ursula von der Leyen in her first term. Today’s promise comes from her second Commission, in office since . The rules for proposing a law have not changed in that time.
Show the other 6 cases
The Read
History says the proposal will probably come this year. Six of the last eight promises became formal proposals in the year the president named, and every promise tied to a week or a month was kept. The two misses had loose deadlines. The defence fund of 2016 came first as a policy paper, and the bank resolution law of 2011 slipped into . The Digital Fairness Act has one thing those misses lacked. It already sits in the Commission’s own work programme for the fourth quarter of 2026, as a proposal for new law with its legal basis named.
The weak spot is the deadline itself, which is a season. For promises tied to a season or to the end of the year, the record is two kept out of four. The closest cases are the two 2015 promises, both for the end of the year. The deposit insurance scheme came in late November. The border guard law came on , which would miss this Echo’s second market by one day.
The prediction fails if the act is folded into another package, split into parts that are not called the Digital Fairness Act, or moved into the Commission’s work programme for 2027. The 2026 programme was adopted on .
Disclaimer
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