The European Commission is concerned that some Member States are lagging behind when it comes to digital matters, especially with regard to 5G. Its findings were compiled in its annual report on the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which was published on Thursday 11 June.
The report looks at progress in the Member States in five main policy areas, namely connectivity, e-skills, internet use by individuals, the take-up of digital technologies by businesses and digital public services. It is based on data for the year 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, and de facto also covers the United Kingdom.
In addition to the lack of progress made on digital skills, it points to two worrying trends: on the one hand, it once more notes that the EU's largest economies are not at the forefront of digitalisation, while as before, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark are leading the way. “Spain is in 11th position, Germany in 12th, France in 15th and Italy 25th, which represents the middle or the bottom of the table”, observed a European official, in reference to overall rankings based on the five criteria.
Another concern the European Commission has, is delays in 5G. By the end of March 2020, only 17 Member States had allocated spectrum in frontier 5G bands (compared to 12 last year), despite the target set in the European Commission's Action Plan. Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovenia had not yet allocated any of the necessary bands. “This is something we are concerned about and we are in close contact with the Member States”, said the European official, before acknowledging that the 2020 target for the allocation of all frequencies would be difficult to meet.
See the report: https://bit.ly/2XTbyKC (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)