The EU, through the European Commission, is working on a digital transformation involving all layers of European society. The unstoppable enhancement of IT technologies and their spread in every area of our lives has changed our relationship with them and the EU wants this to bring benefits to society.
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​To do that, the EU Commission is determined to make this Europe's “Digital Decade”. Europe wants strengthen its digital sovereignty and set standards, with a clear focus on data, technology, and infrastructure.


A. EU Principles
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  • digital putting people first
  • digital for businesses
  • development of reliable technologies
  • digital for public health
  • open and democratic society
  • sustainable economy
  • digital for green transition
B. Establishment the EU objectives
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​February 2020 - Shaping Europe's Digital Future

The main objectives were presented in February 2020, with a Communication whose conclusions underlined the fact that digital technologies are making possible things unthinkable a generation ago and that the EU must set itself the goal of putting these tools into practice to provide public goods to European citizens.

They offer enormous transformation potential that will affect society as a whole, but for it to be successful, the right structures must be created to ensure reliable technology and to give companies the confidence, skills and means to digitize. Efforts need to be coordinated between the EU, Member States, regions, civil society and the private sector to achieve this and strengthen Europe's digital leadership.

Europe, it is said, can possess this digital transformation and "set global standards". But it wants to do so by guaranteeing the inclusion and respect of every single human being and basing it on European values ​​and rules, in order to inspire the rest of the world.
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March 2021 - Digital Compass: the European way to the digital decade

​In March 2021, the European Commission presented a new Communication COM/2021/118 final, entitled "Digital Compass: the European way to the digital decade". It indicates the digital ambitions that Europe should have for the next decade, identifying clear and concrete objectives.
EC speaks of a "digital compass" because the 4 cardinal points are used to identify the main objectives to be achieved in the next decade:

  1. ​Skills - A digitally skilled population and highly skilled digital professionals;
  2. Infrastructures - Secure and sustainable digital infrastructures;
  3. Business - business digital transformation;
  4. Public Services - Digitisation of public services.

​In practice, the policy agenda aims to create a governance framework to help achieve the goals of the digital decade 2030. How? By indicating objectives and implementing cooperation between the Commission and the Member States.
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The Commission is willing to indicate the European implementation strategies and to monitor their progress. Member States have to define national trajectories, roadmaps and implementation plans. These parallel paths are then to be examined annually.

But what are the 2030 objectives declared by the Commission?​

1. Skills
  • 20 million ICT specialists employed in the EU

2. Infrastructures
  • all populated areas covered by 5G
  • 20% of world production of semiconductors in value
  • autonomous vehicle 
  • competences for smart farming, digitalising the food value chain
  • Access to cloud data to SME
  • health data and health records
  • data processing capacity for local public administration
  • 10,000 climate neutral highly secure edge nodes
  • ​Quantum computers​
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​3. Business
  • 75% of European enterprises connected to cloud computing services, big data and Artificial Intelligence
  • 90% of European SMEs at least on a basic level of digital intensity
  • grow its innovative scale-up pipeline and improve their access to finance, leading to a doubling of the number of unicorns (startups worth more than $ 1 billion) in Europe

4. Public services
  • 100% online provision of key public services available for European citizens and businesses; 
  • 100% of European citizens have access to medical records (e-records);
  • 80% of citizens will use a digital ID solution.

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How far Europe is from the 2030 Targets which enable an inclusive and sustainable digital society?