“A Blueprint For The Digital Priorities Of The New EU Mandate”. È questo il titolo dello studio realizzato da PromethEUs, la rete di think tank dell’Europa meridionale composta da I-Com Istituto per la Competitività (Italia), dall’Elcano Royal Institute (Spagna), dalla Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research IOBE (Grecia) e dall’Institute of Public Policy (Portogallo).
The European Commission of 2019-24 undertook a large number of initiatives to create a legal and regulatory framework for a digital environment that is secure, fair and inclusive, and nurtures competitive and innovative markets while protecting EU citizens’ values and fundamental rights. In this context, however, digital providers face the challenge of navigating over 100 existing and forthcoming laws, a complex landscape that proves demanding even for large firms. These regulations, including the Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, and other key frameworks like the Data Governance Act and AI Act, aim to harmonise practices, ensure user safety, and support the EU’s digital transformation goals.
The new European Commission has indeed set an ambitious agenda to drive digitalisation, innovation and regulatory efficiency, emphasising fostering competitiveness while maintaining sustainability and fairness.
The European Union has a unique opportunity to establish itself as a major player in the global technology landscape. However, nowadays, the EU depends on third countries for more than 80% of its digital products, services, infrastructure and intellectual property (IP), unlike the US and China which have shifted their economic model towards ICT. The lack of a technological strategy and lower public and private investments weigh on the EU’s competitive position and the risk is for Europe to become totally dependent on technologies designed and developed abroad. For example, in the AI technology field, the European Union still has a long way to go. While the development of EU AI plans is broadly in line with international best practices, the investment is still too low compared to US and China. Looking at the data, the US is leading in AI private investment ($ 67.2 bn) in 2023, followed by China ($ 7.8 bn).
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises are central to the economies of Southern Europe. Specific initiatives are designed to address the skill gaps and technological integration needs of SMEs to harness the transformative potential of upskilling and reskilling programs and of sectoral dataspaces. Upskilling programs are critical in equipping SME workforces with digital and green capabilities, ensuring their competitiveness, sustainability, and resilience against market shifts. Sectoral dataspaces complement these efforts by fostering secure and collaborative data-sharing ecosystems within key industries.
If the European Union’s perspective has been since 2019 focused on sovereignty and open strategic autonomy, the new mandate in 2024 kicks off with a paradigm shift towards economic security. Also, a second layer of this transformation is marked by the transition from a regulatory focus into a new approach oriented to industrial policy, public intervention and competitiveness as the vertebral axis of digital and clean transitions and a stronger defense baseline. These are four main policy angles that the new mandate for the 2024-2029 period should include in the international dimension of EU’s digital policy:
- The institutional and governance dimension with the creation of first-ever Executive Vice-President for Technology Sovereignty, Security and Democracy;
- The strengthening and further coordination of digital diplomacy efforts;
- The technological dimension in the Enlargement Policy mostly with candidate countries
to access the European Union; - Revamped agenda with priority-setting and an action-based roadmap for putting the
Economic Security Strategy into practice.
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