Tallinn Digital Summit
Prime Minister of Estonia Jüri Ratas has published conclusions from the Tallinn Digital Summit, which are going to be discussed by the European Union leaders at the next European Council taking place on 19-20 October in Brussels.
Part of these conclusions are about the digital future of economy and society. Conclusions say:
“We should make the EU the home for enterprises and innovators in the digital age. As digitisation transforms sectors, we need to ensure that the EU’s freedoms are fit for the digital age. Europe should not shy away and embrace disruptive innovation and technologies, and make the most of the free movement of data.
- Completing the digital single market by 2018 is an important first step in realising these goals, but we should go further. We should review EU and national laws more broadly to make sure they are fit for the digital age.
- We should aim to provide excellent conditions for new forms of entrepreneurship, for startups and scale-ups in the data economy. Agile and tech-friendly regulation should contribute to making Europe an attractive headquarters for new and growing companies. We need to accelerate the digital transformation of industries through an uptake of the latest technologies, including artificial intelligence, big data processing and blockchain.
- We need to ensure a level playing field as well as platform neutrality, including fair access to platforms for SMEs as the gateways to reach consumers. We must look at how competition law should evolve to take into account new business models, and consider initiatives for platform transparency.
- We are committed to a global change of taxation rules and to adapting our own tax systems to ensure that digitally-generated profits in the European Union are taxed where the value is created. Further discussion is needed on the modalities of establishing such a system.
- Data is an important resource; ensuring an appropriate framework for data and its free movement within the single market and globally between advanced industrialised nations is a priority. It is very important that the EU has the world’s best framework for enabling the access and (re)use of data for innovative products and services, including for the development of artificial intelligence solutions, while maintaining a high level of ethics, data and intellectual property protection and digital rights.
We should work to empower and enable people in the digital age. Digital skills are the new literacy, and should be taught universally. The digital economy offers major opportunities for our young people, including through startups and self-employment. We remain committed to promoting and preserving a social model fit for the digital economy.
- Our labour markets and training systems need to be adapted and made more resilient and flexible, in cooperation with social partners, to support a fluid and highly mobile workforce in all sectors.
- We cannot leave anyone behind – all Europeans, in particular the unemployed, should have opportunities to acquire basic digital literacy and upgrade their existing digital skills, at all ages and levels of education.
- We should focus our activities in areas with significant likelihood of automation. Our companies need access to a highly trained talent pool suitable for the data economy and digital society.
We should invest in the growth of the digital economy, including a world-class infrastructure.
- The EU should concentrate its R&D and investment efforts, industrial policy and other measures to stimulate and assist the digital transformation of industries. This includes high-performance computing facilities that enable the extraction of value from large quantities of data. Like other advanced industrialised nations, Europe needs a state-of-the-art ecosystem for disruptive innovation and breakthrough technologies that support our strategic autonomy and solving Europe’s moonshot challenges, and should consider an agency executing high-risk, high-reward investments.
- Communication networks constitute the backbone of the digital world. We should establish an ambitious roadmap and framework to deploy world-leading optical fibre and 5G networks by 2025. We should work together at the European level to reach the scale and level of coordination needed to achieve our goals, and will make every effort to make more spectrum available in a timely and predictable manner.
- While most of the targets related to upgrading infrastructure and upskilling labour force will have to be achieved by member states themselves, we should examine how to increase the contribution of European investments to these goals, in particular considering instruments such as EFSI and CEF and their successors. We should also examine State aid rules and other framework conditions to ensure they are fit for purpose and support these investments.”
Source: Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union
Attachments
In: Connectivity & Automation, Growth & Competitiveness