Abstract

The transformation of the economy into global value chains has radically transformed the form in which economic actors interact with each other. Digitalization has accelerated the transformation. In a context of rapid changes, the conventional schemas of European national private laws struggle, both in their substance and enforcement dimensions, with the destabilizing effect brought about by the global value chain. These national private laws embodied the diverse cultural traditions and socioeconomic realities of the member states, reserving to small businesses (SMEs) a specific socioeconomic role. This diversity was, for example, present in the different combinations of contract, competition and trading legislations that have historically shaped the role of SMEs as players in the market.

In the new context of the global and digital value chain, the role of SMEs is bound to change. Against this background, this paper looks at the transformation of SMEs in the EU. While the GVC destabilizes traditional private laws, it has also provided the European Union with new leeway to manage persistent national differences in B2b trading practices. This can be seen in the promotion of co-regulation to govern economic imbalances in the food chain as well as in the creation of new regulatory instruments to govern the relations between digital platforms and their business users. By spurring the global value chain, the EU transforms national fair trading laws through three parallel mechanisms: the re-definition of SMEs as actors in the internal market; the creation of new mechanisms for enforcement; and finally, the promotion of new substantive standards for trading practices in which sustainability is equated to fairness.