Brussels, 19/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Union is taking control of the digitalisation of industry. On Tuesday 19 April, it presented a European strategy to support and link up the initiatives of member states to promote the digital transition in industry and related services (see EUROPE 11526). These proposals were welcomed by European companies and call for the setting up of a science computing cloud.
During his preamble, the European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, Günther H. Oettinger, explained that "If Europe is going to be able to maintain its leadership role, it needs its industrial sector to digitalise rapidly and successfully… We need to pool our efforts throughout Europe to attract the investments necessary for growth in the digital economy". He also said that at the current time, there were around 20 different isolated initiatives (Industrie 4.0 in Germany, Smart Industry in the Netherlands and Slovakia, Fabbrica Intelligente in Italy, et cetera.)
The communication heading therefore proposes the introduction of appropriate regulatory conditions at a European level. In this context, the Commission has made a commitment to present an initiative in 2016 on data traffic in the EU, in an effort to prevent unfair localisation criteria and to examine emerging questions such as data appropriation. It also announced that it intended to examine rules for autonomous systems and applications for the Internet of things, particularly security and liability rules.
The Commission will also put forward a raft of separate communications for: (1) the creation of the European cloud that will initially be used by researchers then by everyone else later; (2) the development of online administration by way of developing the "once only" principle; (3) concrete measures to speeding up common standards (with a priority on 5G, cloud computing, the Internet of things, mega data and cyber security). It is also committed in this connection to making all scientific data from future projects included in the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, "open by default" as from 2017. Asked about the potential conflict of interest, Carlos Moedas, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, said: "I am in favour of knowledge being open by default. Knowledge allows for ideas to be developed but these ideas need to be protected". He also indicated that 19% of data in the world haf been created over the past two years. Commissioner Günther Oettinger highlighted the importance of having "fewer but common standards… The challenge is one of connectivity".
A €50 billion envelope. Overall, the Commission believes that all these initiatives will require more than €50 billion in public and private investment. It considers that 6.8 billion will come from the European budget. The Commission would invest, for example, €500 million from the Horizon 2020 research framework programme as part of the "digital innovation platforms" pan-European network (centres of technological excellence) in which companies will be able to obtain advice and test out digital innovation. Member states would be invited to contribute a minimum of €21 billion and companies €22 billion.
The new raft of measures accompanied are working documents on implementing the action plan for a high-performance calculation strategy for quantum technologies, the Internet of things, in addition to an analysis of the previous online administration action plan.
Positive reactions. As soon as the package was published, the BusinessEurope organisation representing private business in Europe published a press release expressing its satisfaction and its director general, Markus J. Beyrer indicated “This is important to support European competitiveness, keeping jobs in Europe and creating new ones. The European Commission rightly provides an EU-coordinated approach to reduce the current legal fragmentation within the EU". ETNO, the association representing Europe's leading telecom operators, welcomed the new non-legislative package " Today's communications set a milestone in the approach to ICT policymaking, by recognising that digital is re-shaping the approach to industrial policies as a whole". The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) also welcomed the fact that the Commission had set out priority areas for developing common standards and that there would be “industry driven standardization". (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)