Mediaroom

The European Commission published a communication on “Europe’s Digital Decade”. This initiative is a response to the European Council’s call for a “Digital Compass” and builds on the Commission’s digital strategy of February 2020. It proposes to agree on a set of digital principles, to rapidly launch important multi-country projects, and to prepare a legislative proposal setting out a robust governance framework, to monitor progress – the Digital Compass.

Europe’s Digital Compass

The Commission proposes a Digital Compass to translate the EU’s digital ambitions for 2030 into concrete terms. They evolve around four cardinal points:

Skills

• At least 80% of all adults should possess basic digital skills
• There should be 20 million employed ICT specialists in the EU with convergence between women and men, compared to 7.8 million in 2019

Infrastructures

• All European households should have gigabit connectivity compared to 59% in 2020 and all populated areas will be covered by 5G, up from 14% in 2021
• The production of cutting-edge and sustainable semiconductors in Europe including processors should represent at least 20% of world production in value, doubling from 10% in 2020
• 10,000 climate neutral, highly secure edge nodes (that will allow data processing at the edge of the network) should be deployed in the EU and distributed in a way that guarantees access to data with low latency
• Europe should have its first cutting-edge quantum accelerated computer

Businesses

• Three out of four companies should use cloud computing services, big data, and Artificial Intelligence
• More than 90% of European SMEs should reach at least a basic level of digital intensity, compared to 61% in 2019
• There should be about 250 start-ups with €1bn in value in the EU, a 100% increase compared to 2021

Public services

• All key public services should be available online
• All citizens will have access to their e-medical records
• 80% of citizens should use a digital ID solution

The Compass sets out a joint governance structure with member states based on a monitoring system with annual reporting in the form of traffic lights. The targets will be enshrined in a Policy Programme to be agreed with the Parliament and the Council.

Potential areas of partnership include the use of technology to fight climate change and environmental challenges.

More information can be found here.

Multi-country projects

To better address gaps in the EU’s critical capacities, the Commission will facilitate the rapid launch of multi-country projects, combining investments from the EU budget, Member States and industry, while building on the Recovery and Resilience Facility and other EU funding. In their Recovery and Resilience Plans, Member States are committed to dedicating at least 20% to the digital priority. Possible multi-country projects include a pan-European interconnected data processing infrastructure; the design and deployment of the next generation of low power trusted processors; or connected public administrations.