By Maroš ŠefčovičIn her famous Bruges speech in 1988, Margaret Thatcher identified the single market as our best competitive advantage. What she did not know was one day something called the internet would make her statement even more topical.More than two decades later, the digital single market is indeed our new frontier. It will allow us to compete with new economic powers and it will bring huge benefits to every European citizen.
Today we are talking about the digital, internet or even the so-called app economy, which generates hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of euros a year. Given the fact that 5 years after the global crisis we are still struggling with its impact, especially the serious problem of high unemployment across Europe, the digital economy has the real potential to restore European economic growth.
The importance of the digital part of the European economy was obvious already back in 2010 when the DAE – the Digital Agenda for Europe – was identified as one of the flagship initiatives under the EU 2020 Strategy. The Digital Single Market, interoperability and standards, trust and security, fast internet access, research and innovation, enhancing digital literacy and skills – these are the key pillars of the DAE pushed forward in order to create a fully operational Digital Single Market across Europe. Full implementation of the DAE could increase EU GDP by 5% or 1500 euros per person over the next 8 years. In terms of employment, 1.2 million new jobs could be created through the construction of the digital infrastructure.
There is no doubt that we need to accomplish this objective.
Establishing a digital single market would mean that information can be exchanged easily and swiftly across borders, helping citizens and businesses to fully benefit from the freedoms of the single market.
Currently, moving countries for work, study or retirement brings with it certain administrative requirements. When moving across borders, a person has to provide information and documentation – often issued by their home country’s administration – to public administrations, both national and local, in their new place of residence. Businesses also have a certain amount of document transmission and ‘form filling’ to do when establishing themselves in other EU Member States. This was confirmed by EU citizens in the recently published EU citizenship report, where existing administrative burdens were identified as one of the key obstacles to fully exploiting the advantages of the EU Single Market and EU citizenship status.
That is why, in 2009, the European Commission put forward the so-called ISA Program (Interoperability solutions for European Public Administration) which aims to foster interoperability between public administrations by helping to establish common approaches that will make collaboration a lot easier. Sharing and reusing tools such as common platforms and common components, along with the sharing of services like common infrastructures, will also play a part by keeping costs down and reducing time to market.
Let me give you another example.
While many European countries already use electronic procurement to make tendering of public sector contracts simpler and more efficient, most of these solutions are implemented solely on a national or regional level, with limited access to other communities. That is why in 2008 the European Commission unveiled the Pan-European Public Procurement Online (PEPPOL) project, which has been developing and implementing the technology standards to align business processes for electronic procurement across all governments within Europe, aiming to expand market connectivity and interoperability between eProcurement communities.
In practice, its full implementation would mean that, for example, a Danish small manufacturer of specialised microscopes could easily bid in a tender issued by a French hospital. PEPPOL standards would ensure that the manufacturer’s corporate attestations and product offers are securely submitted to the hospital in a legally and technically appropriate manner. And, if this Danish small enterprise is successful in its bid, the French hospital would be able to send orders and receive invoices in terms of a common set of defined business rules and processes.
Or what about this as another excellent example of how we are helping create a fully functional digital economy across Europe:
A few days ago, the “Connected Continent” legislative package was approved, which when adopted, will reduce consumer charges, simplify red tape faced by companies, and bring a range of new rights for both users and service providers, so that Europe can once again be a global digital leader.
Last but not least, I would like to mention the excellent Digital Champions project. This initiative launched by my colleague Neelie last year, created a network of 28 national Digital Champions who work with citizens, communities and businesses to exploit the growth potential of the digital economy. Each Digital Champion develops initiatives in their own country to get people more digital. Digital Champions encounter similar challenges across the European Union. By ensuring regular contact between the Champions, the European Commission provides a platform to discuss and compare action at grass-roots level, and mobilises citizens and businesses to take advantage of the digital economy. Unfortunately, the Slovak Digital Champion, State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance Peter Pellegrini, was finally not able to join us and share with us his experience with implementation of the digital economy in Slovakia nevertheless I would like to appreciate his personal engagement and results achieved so far in this area.
Creating a true digital or internet economy is a real challenge for Member States as well. I am pleased that recently published statistics (by Eurostat) confirmed that 70% of Slovak citizens are regular internet users (at least once a week) and 5.5 % of the total Slovak workforce is linked to the ICT sector (4th place within the EU behind Finland (5.9 %), Sweden (5.9 %) and Malta (5.6 %)). Moreover, 52 % of Slovak citizens (between 25-54) electronically interact with public authorities, a figure comparable with the European average. (No1 Denmark 92% , EU average 52 %, No28 Italy 24 %).
Slovakia has a few successful stories as regards internet companies. The globally recognised ESET (one of the top 5 global antivirus programs), Sygic (in the top 5 producers of navigation for mobile devices) or Quality Unit (a top 5 producer of affiliate marketing software) are good examples of Slovak potential in this field.
In order to successfully implement this internet economy “project” in Slovakia I would recommend focusing on building up IT literacy and skills, modifying the way in which these issues are taught in schools in order to support eCommerce and creation of start-ups.
To achieve this goal, Slovakia should effectively use all European programmes and schemes aiming at supporting these objectives such as the Horizon 2020 (70.2 bn euro) program for research and innovation in order to create new growth and jobs in Europe or the programs prepared under the new multiannual financial framework 2014-2020. Over the next 7 years, Slovakia will be allowed to spend more than 13 bn euros (net position) on its key priorities.
I hope that building-up the internet economy will be among these priorities and that within a few years, Slovakia will be able to compete with the best internet economies not only within the EU but worldwide. – Eurasia Review
