"The GDPR serves as a “backbone of the EU’s digital rulebook”, but has also been a source of intense debate and criticism from the outset. Broadly, two main sides have emerged: some say the GDPR constitutes an excessive regulatory burden on businesses and the economy; others warn that revising it risks undermining fundamental rights.
In the current political climate, shaped by lobbying pressure from powerful private actors, political narratives are increasingly aligned with the first view. The Commission, as well as the coalition treaty of the current German government, call for reducing the burden on SMEs (small and medium enterprises) from GDPR obligations and other “bureaucratic” requirements.
While easing burdens on non-commercial actors, such as associations, is arguably reasonable and legitimate (as data protection is, after all, a balancing of interests between processors and data subjects), the debate is overly fixated on simplification, efficiency, and competitiveness. These terms, however, lack intrinsic normative value. Without clear reference points, they remain empty rhetoric. One can, after all, dismantle democracies very efficiently. Unless they are linked to fundamental rights and sustainable social and political objectives, an exclusive focus on these buzzwords will ultimately benefit only those actors who already dominate the market.
Meanwhile, several structural challenges remain unresolved: the dysfunctional instrument of consent; the increasing impossibility of distinguishing between data categories, especially in the age of AI; the structural erosion of data protection principles; the lack of coordination with other legal acts, and the continuing unbridled power of global players in the digital economy, whose aggressive data extraction continues."
https://verfassungsblog.de/reforming-the-gdpr/