EU Digital Regulation and Guatemala: AI, 5G, and Cybersecurity

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how EU digital regulations in AI, 5G, and cybersecurity influence Guatemala's policies, highlighting extraterritorial effects, national impacts, and proposing governance guardrails.

Contribution

It provides a detailed mapping of EU regulation impacts on Guatemala and introduces five policy guardrails for managing transnational digital governance.

Findings

EU rules exert extraterritorial influence on Guatemala.

Guatemala faces compliance costs and capacity gaps.

Proposes five guardrails for digital governance in Guatemala.

Abstract

The paper examines how EU rules in AI, 5G, and cybersecurity operate as transnational governance and shape policy in Guatemala. It outlines the AI Act's risk approach, the 5G Action Plan and Security Toolbox, and the cybersecurity regime built on ENISA, NIS2, the Cybersecurity Act, and the Cyber Resilience Act. It traces extraterritorial channels such as the Brussels effect, private standards, supply chain clauses, and data transfer controls. Guatemala specific impacts include SME compliance costs, procurement limits, environmental trade-offs in rollout, rights risks, and capacity gaps. The paper maps current national measures and proposes five guardrails: digital constitutionalism, green IT duties, third country impact assessment, standards co-design, and recognition of regulatory diversity.