An independent study of the EU’s Digital Decade Strategy highlights gaps and offers recommendations regarding the achievement of the targets by 2030.
The European Parliament’s (EP) Policy Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies published a study on ‘Europe’s digital decade and autonomy’, requested by the EP’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) The study delivers an independent expert opinion and an assessment of the 2030 targets set by the Digital Compass (see SwissCore article) and the overall Digital Strategy of the European Commission (EC). The study aims to contribute to the current debate on Europe’s digital policy in four key areas. First, it provides an analysis of trends, promises, challenges, and risks of each of the four pillars of the Digital Compass. Second, the study presents an overview of the policy measures in each of the Compass dimensions, with a section on the funding needs and investment gaps. Next, an independent critical assessment of all targets set by 2030 is made. Finally, the contested concepts of digital strategic autonomy and digital sovereignty, which have become key terms in the European debate, is discussed.
The study highlighted the necessity of new policy measures and additional investments to achieve the ambitious Digital Compass targets for 2030. Otherwise, it does not seem feasible to reach them within the planned time frame. The quantitative forecast indicates that the Digital Compass cardinal point on digital skills is over-ambitious and that it is unrealistic to reach the respective targets by 2030. The second cardinal point concerning infrastructure needs to be investigated in more detail. The connectivity target seems to be reachable by 2030, especially concerning the coverage of Very High-Capacity Networks (VHCN) for all European households. Regarding edge nodes, there is no available data for a quantitative forecast, which makes predictions impossible. The third cardinal point focuses on the digital transformation of businesses. Overall, the importance of SMEs should have been more emphasised in the Digital Compass, because the European economy is dominated by SMEs. There is still a large gap in the level of digitalisation between SMEs and large enterprises. In addition, SMEs lag in the uptake of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The study highlights that without new funding mechanisms and governance, it will be difficult to reach the set goals. The fourth cardinal point concerning public services focuses on the importance that the public sector should not only be considered as a service provider but rather as an enabler facilitating the adoption and use of technologies. The most important aspect that matters, according to the study, is to which extent services are online and actively used by citizens and businesses. In this context, a recommendation was formulated to reduce the administrative burden for users of online public services, for instance, that all European citizens have easily access to their medical records or receive their digital ID.
The study provides cross-sectoral general conclusions and recommendations, based on the limitations and gaps that were identified. The investigation highlights that there exists a lack of sectorial and strategic analysis of the value chains to identify the EU’s strengths and weaknesses compared to global leaders. The presented funding mechanisms of the EU, which are part of the Digital Compass strategy, are referenced to new funding mechanisms or the use of existing possibilities to allow for state subsidies, which are not yet implemented. One of the most important findings is that more funds for SMEs and scale-ups are needed. One concrete proposal the study offers is that money allocated within the Digital Europe Programme for AI and High-Performance Computing should be expanded and better focussed on SMEs. Lastly, the proposed regulations, for instance the AI Act, should consider the costs they possibly impose on businesses in terms of administrative burden and conformity tests and audits.
The EU has focused mainly on regulations to remedy the negative consequences of its globally compared weak position in digital governance. Most of these planned regulations enhance the protection of civil liberties and consumers’ rights. However, according to the study, they seem unlikely to enable Europe to regain a global position in online platforms or cloud computing.