Visions and perspectives for the digital transformation by 2030

On 1 June, EACA joined the “Leading the Digital Decade” event organised by the European Commission around its  2030 Digital Compass,

What are the objectives of the 2030 Digital Compass?

There are four main points:1. A digitally literate population and highly skilled digital professionals

  • At least 80% of the adult population should have basic digital skills.
  • Twenty million specialists should be employed in the EU in the ICT sector with a convergence of women and men, compared to 7.8 million in 2019.
  1. Sustainable, secure, and performing digital infrastructures
  • All European households should benefit from Gigabit connectivity, up from 59% in 2020, and all populated areas will be covered by 5G, up from 14% in 2021.
  • Production of sustainable, state-of-the-art semiconductors in Europe, including processors, should represent at least 20% of global production value, doubling from 10% in 2020.
  • Ten thousand climate-neutral and highly secure peripheral nodes (enabling data processing at the edge of the network) should be deployed in the EU and distributed to ensure low-latency data access.
  • Europe should have its first state-of-the-art quantum computer.
  1. Digital transformation of businesses
  • Three out of four businesses should use cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence services.
  • More than 90% of European SMEs should reach at least a basic level of digital intensity, up from 61% in 2019.
  • There should be around 250 “unicorns” (start-ups worth $1 billion) in the EU, a 100% increase from 2021.
  1. Digitisation of public services
  • All vital public services should be available online.
  • All citizens will have access to their electronic health record.
  • 80% of citizens should use digital identification.

What are the next steps?

The adoption of the Communication will be followed by a structured consultation on the objectives and the compass as well as on the digital principles. Based on this, the Commission aims to come up with a statement on the digital principles by the end of 2021 and propose a Digital Policy Agenda in Q3 2021. The Commission intends to carry out an annual Eurobarometer dedicated explicitly to monitoring European citizens’ perceptions of their rights, values, and aspirations online.