Andaman7 becomes the first member of EUCoLab's health sector

We got some big news! As you know, we are aiming at reaching as many people as possible around the world and allow everyone to access their medical data.

Well we just joined some of the biggest names in term of collaborative economy in EUCoLab : a forum of companies coming together to explore the current and future policy and regulatory landscape of the collaborative economy.

As first member of EUCoLab acting in the health sector, we will JOIN Companies such as AirBNB, UBER, or Inuit to support the development of the collaborative economy in Europe.

We are very proud of this new alliance and can't wait to shake things up in Europe!

The following open letter was sent today to the attention of Commissioner Bienkowska

Dear Commissioner Bieńkowska,

Congratulations on the newly adopted European agenda for the collaborative economy! The European Commission’s leadership on the collaborative economy is strongly

welcomed. Furthermore, it is much needed in order for users and entrepreneurs across Europe to fully reap the many benefits of the collaborative economy in terms of jobs, growth, efficient services and the better use of resources. European users expect to have access to modern services across all European Member States. The radically different approaches of one Member State to another are preventing this. European entrepreneurs in the collaborative economy need legal certainty to develop and grow their services across the European Single Market. We strongly hope that regulation can be reassessed at regional and local level to avoid large disparities in regulatory burdens between Member States, thereby supporting the further development of collaborative business models in the European Single Market. As rightly pointed out in the Agenda, existing EU laws should to be applied and enforced to challenge national regulations that are unduly restricting their developments. This approach is more needed than EU laws supporting innovative business models. With the Agenda, the European Commission has provided astrong impulse to Member States to reassess existing regulations, and refrain from passing regulations that are not strictly meant to serve the public interest.

The European Commission also calls for Member States to consider differentiating between professional service providers and peers providing services on an occasional basis. We support this approach, and welcome the establishment of thresholds under which an economic activity would be considered as nonprofessional peertopeer activity and be subject to lighter regulatory requirements. Reputational and ranking systems can prove to be at least as effective as regulatory requirements in ensuring high quality services for consumers and so policymakers should take these developments into consideration. The role of applications which assist users offering their goods and services in the collaborative economy should also be explored. We ask the Commission to examine how they may best enable, and not stifle, innovation in order to maximise the benefit these developments bring to participants in the sector.

The Communication also raises a number of issues that require more analysis. The signatories of this letter stand ready to support the work of the Commission to monitor the development of the collaborative economy, identifying national regulations and cooperation with local authorities that constitute best practises. A growing number of such best practices are developing across the EU. They should guide Member States in shaping their policies and regulations to ensure that the collaborative economy benefits all Europeans, no matter in which Member State they live. Our companies are delighted to work with you as a keypartner in this endeavour.

Yours sincerely

Airbnb, Andaman7, Homestay, HooYu, VentureLab, Intuit, Lignum Capital, LocoSoco, Nimber, Onfido, Parkfy, Peerby, Seats2Meet, SnappCar, The People Who Share, TicketSwap, Uber, Veridu, YourParkingSpace.

More info on EUCoLab on their website: http://eucolab.delanyco.com/

Airbnrs of EUCoLab:

Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com

Homestay: https://www.homestay.com/

Hooyu: https://www.hooyu.com/

Venturelab: http://venturelab.be/

Intuit: https://www.intuit.com/

Lignum capital: http://www.lignumcap.com/

Loco Soco: http://www.locoso.co/

Nimber: https://www.nimber.com/

Onfido: https://onfido.com/

Parkfy: https://parkfy.com/