After the adoption by the EU Council of the European Union in its first reading (see EUROPE 12679/34), the European Parliament approved on Thursday 29 April in second reading the interinstitutional agreement reached at the end of 2020 on the Digital Europe programme. This should enable the deployment of technologies such as artificial intelligence, supercomputers or data platforms (see EUROPE 12622/2).
Thus, the Digital Europe programme provides a total funding envelope of 7.6 billion euros for the period 2021-2027. 2.2 billion will be allocated to increasing the capacity of supercomputers and data processing in the European Union.
The artificial intelligence component will be able to count on a budget of 2 billion euros. This sum will be mainly dedicated to testing and experimentation in the fields of health and mobility.
1.6 billion will be devoted to cyber security to strengthen EU coordination and capacity in this area. Just over 1 billion euros will be allocated to the digital transformation of public services across Europe.
“Although the programme was not completed in the final agreement of the Multiannual Financial Framework, it remains the most important tool to achieve our goal of asserting Europe’s digital sovereignty”, said Valter Flego (Renew Europe, Hungary), rapporteur for Parliament. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)