With just a few months to go before the deadline for the revision of the ‘European Digital Decade Programme’, which sets out the EU’s digital transition objectives up to 2030, Agence Europe has been able to consult the EU Council’s latest draft conclusions on the issue, which encourage the Commission to take into account an open approach to European technological sovereignty.
The document points out that the EU is already “behind on its 2030 digital transition targets”, particularly in the vital areas of AI and its adoption, digital skills and the digitisation of SMEs. This delay was already highlighted in the report published last June (see EUROPE 13660/14).
The reasons for these delays are already well-known: market fragmentation, regulatory complexity and overlapping obligations, strategic independence and lack of access to capital.
The European Commission must take advantage of the review of the programme, scheduled for June 2026, to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness in this field, according to the EU27.
The conclusions point out that AI is a key driver of productivity, innovation and the quality of public and private services throughout the EU. The document recognises the Commission’s simplification objectives, and the EU27 have pledged to give them “their full attention”.
More specifically, the Member States want the Commission to use the full potential of ‘digital tools’ such as the digital wallet “to accelerate and facilitate the transition of European industries and SMEs”.
They would also like to see the Commission undertake serious impact and risk studies before proposing additional legislation in this area, in order to assess the extra burden this could place on businesses.
They also called for reduced reporting and documentation obligations, and improved coordination between sectors and countries through joint projects and the pooling of resources granted by the programme.
According to the conclusions, European digital and technological sovereignty is “linked to a well-functioning single market that is conducive to innovation and growth” and to “strategic global collaboration to ensure openness and diversification, security, resilience and reliability of supply chains”. This “balanced and open approach to digital sovereignty” could be incorporated into the review of the programme.
Finally, the EU Council says it is looking forward to the forthcoming proposal on the Cloud and AI Development Act, which could become a “key initiative” for improving access to data centres and cloud capacity in the EU.
It stresses the “need to establish common criteria for sovereign cloud services” to ensure market transparency and “address dependency risks, including the extraterritorial effects of legislation adopted by third countries for highly critical use cases”.
The document must be approved by the permanent representatives of the EU27 at the ambassadors’ meeting (Coreper) on Wednesday 26 November. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)