The EC proposed a plan to achieve the digital transformation

On Wednesday, the European Commission (EC) proposed a concrete plan to achieve the digital transformation of European society and economy by 2030, entitled "The Road to the Digital Decade". The Digital Decade Roadmap aims to translate the EU's digital ambitions by 2030 into concrete action. It will serve as a governance framework for meeting the objectives of the Digital Decade at Union level in the areas of digital skills and infrastructure, digitization of business models and public services, and will be based on an annual cooperation mechanism with Member States. Its aim is to identify and implement large-scale digital projects involving the EC and EU Member States. The Commission said that the corona crisis underlined the central role that digital technologies play in building a sustainable future and revealed the gap between digitally equipped businesses and companies that are still implementing digital solutions. She also drew attention to the differences between urban, rural and remote areas with good connections. According to the EC, digitization offers a number of new opportunities in the European market, where in 2020 more than 500,000 vacancies for data experts and cyber security experts remained vacant. In line with European values, the road to the digital decade should strengthen the EU's digital leadership and promote a sustainable digital policy that empowers citizens and businesses. EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said in this context that the EU is committed to becoming a world technology leader. "Setting targets for 2030 has been an important step, but we need results now. We need to ensure that Europe is not overly dependent in the coming years. Otherwise, we will still pay for global ups and downs and lose the opportunity for economic growth and job creation. I believe in Europe, which is the market leader of the future and not just an ordinary supplier, "he described the situation in a report to the media. The EC noted that digital progress in the Member States was very uneven and that trends showed that countries that had advanced at a slow pace five years ago were still making progress today. The new path towards the digital decade will lead to structured cooperation to work together to achieve agreed goals, taking into account the different starting points between Member States. The Commission has proposed to join the annual cooperation mechanism with Member States, which provides for a progress monitoring system based on a stricter Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which will allow Europe to move rapidly towards achieving the goals of the digital decade. Each year, the EC will present a report to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU on the state of the digital decade in order to compare the realization results achieved in the field of digitization and to make targeted recommendations to Member States to achieve the 2030 targets by national circumstances. The Commission will review these targets in 2026 to take account of technological, economic and social developments.