Finland: Digitally advanced EU countries: EU must strive for technological competitiveness

NordenBladet — At their virtual meeting on 27 January, the group of ministers from digitally advanced EU countries (D9+) discussed Europe’s goals on digitalisation for the 2030 targets of the Digital Decade. According to the countries’ joint declaration published at the meeting, Europe’s technological competitiveness is based on digital development, innovations and a functioning internal market.

“The EU’s future economic growth and competitiveness will be founded on digitalisation and mitigation of climate change. We must strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and promote digital technologies in order to ensure a leading position in global technological competition,” says Minister of Economic Affairs Mika Lintilä, who chaired the meeting.

The declaration states that artificial intelligence, quantum computers and 5G and 6G technologies, together with the data economy, will enable the digital decade. The EU should utilise its global competitive advantage in these areas while maintaining an open internal market and strengthening international cooperation.

Commitment to set goals for Europe’s digital decadeIn the declaration, the D9+ countries’ ministers made a commitment to continue discussions on the key drivers of digitalisation and technological competitiveness and to advance the formulation of objectives for the European digital decade.

The next meeting of the D9+ ministers will be organised by Luxembourg. D9+ is a ministerial group of digitally advanced EU countries that promote the strategic utilisation, implementation and sharing of best practices of digitalisation. The meeting was attended by the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Czech Republic and Estonia.