Estonia has kept its promise to place digitalisation at the heart of its period in charge of the Presidency of the Council of the EU. On Tuesday 18 and Wednesday 19 July, it will organise a joint informal meeting with ministers responsible for telecommunications and competitiveness in addition to a conference on the single digital market, which will focus on a number of subjects including the free movement of data.
The Commission has made a commitment to presenting a legislative initiative this autumn on the free cross-border movement of non-personal data and an initiative on the access and re-use of public sector data obtained from public funding, by spring 2018.
In this context, the Estonian Presidency will organise two major discussions on this subject: the first will take place on 18 July during a conference on the single digital market, attended by entrepreneurs and researchers from the whole world (including Alex Pentland, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, from London Imperial College and Wojciech Wiewiorówski, Assistant European Data Protection Supervisor). A second conference will take place on 19 July during the informal joint meeting between ministers responsible for telecommunications and competitiveness. During the working dinner, ministers will continue their discussions in which they will highlight their expectations regarding the legislative proposal promised by the Commission. They will also discuss data access and reuse between organisations. Their exchange of views will be based on the notes prepared by the Lisbon Council.
In the afternoon of 19 July, telecommunication ministers will meet up to discuss the rollout of 5G in Europe (attended by the new Bulgarian Commissioner, Mariya Gabriel), while ministers in charge of competitiveness will tackle the subject of, “the single market as a service” including the issue of the free movement of data, again.
It is not usually customary, but this informal meeting will be concluded with the declaration on the roll out of 5G. According to our information, this declaration will be based around the following ideas: spectrum provision and management, peer learning, creating “champions”, coverage and connectivity, global interoperability, fibre-optic development and implementation of small radio transmitters. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)