Europe’s future is determined by the successful achievement of the digital and green transitions. The COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on economy and society have underlined the crucial role of digital technologies for people andbusinesses. Digital technologies are critical to recover from the crisis, to ensure that everybody and everywhere can benefit from digital opportunities, to foster EU’s resilience and address the risks and dependencies on third countries, as well as to influence EU’s positioning on the global stage. Digital technologies are also essential to achieve sustainability goals.
This Communication will complement and build on the Commission’s existing policies, budget programmes and strategies, and on the Recovery Plans, with emphasis on the digital and green transition. The proposed Communication aims at charting the pathway to a common digital decade vision for the EU, Member States, and most importantly, citizens.
The aim of this Communication would be to provide a roadmap and launch an inclusive consultation process towards a clear vision for Europe’s digital transformation by 2030 drawing on in particular the ‘Shaping Europe’s digital future’ Communication, the Data Strategy, the New industrial policy, the White paper on AI, the Recovery Plan for Europe and the Recovery and Resilience Facility and taking into account EU funded instruments.
The roadmap would include setting up our common ambition for digital leadership, principles, and measurable targets at EU level combined with monitoring at national level, supported by a governance including a mechanism to ensure that progress towards the envisaged targets and principles can be tracked and that major milestones are identified along the way.
Consultation on this roadmap will be open till 9 March 2021 on address: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12900-Europe-s-digital-decade-2030-digital-targets. The Commission will encourage the public, both citizens and other stakeholders, to provide their input. The main stakeholders involved are citizens, policymakers and politicians, governments of all levels, social partners, NGOs, businesses across all sectors including SMEs.
All feedbacks from the public consultation are available at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12900-Europe-s-digital-decade-2030-digital-targets/feedback?p_id=20937899.
On 9 March 2021, the European Commission (EC) presented a Communication on "2030 Digital Compass: the European way for the Digital Decade", which plans a legislative proposal, in which the Digital Compass will be included in the form of a Digital Policy Agenda with implementation targets by 2030 in 4 areas - digital skills, digital infrastructures, digital transformation of businesses and digitalization of public services.
The Digital Compass and Annex are available in the application: