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Digitization

Europe's Digital Decade: Commission towards a digitally empowered Europe by 2030

The European Commission presents a vision, targets and avenues for a successful digital transformation of Europe by 2030. This is also critical to achieve the transition towards a climate neutral, circular and resilient economy. The EU's ambition is to be digitally sovereign in an open and interconnected world, and to pursue digital policies that empower people and businesses to seize a human centred, sustainable and more prosperous digital future. This includes addressing vulnerabilities and dependencies as well as accelerating investment.

To make the next years Europe's ‘Digital Decade'; responds to the European Council's call for a ‘Digital Compass'; and builds on the Commission's digital strategy of February 2020. The Communication proposes to agree on a set of digital principles, to rapidly launch important multi-country projects, and to prepare a legislative proposal setting out a robust governance framework, to monitor progress – the Digital Compass.

Europe's Digital Compass: The Commission proposes a Digital Compass to translate the EU?s digital ambitions for 2030 into concrete terms. They evolve around four cardinal points:

  1. Digitally skilled citizens and highly skilled digital professionals: By 2030, at least 80% of all adults should have basic digital skills, and there should be 20 million employed ICT.
  2. Secure, performant and sustainable digital infrastructures: By 2030, all EU households should have gigabit connectivity and all populated areas should be covered by 5G.
  3. Digital transformation of businesses: By 2030, three out of four companies should use cloud computing services, big data, and Artificial Intelligence.
  4. Digitalization of public services: By 2030, all key public services should be available online; all citizens will have access to their e-medical records; and 80% citizens should use an eID solution.
R&D & Innovation

Commission sets research and innovation priorities for a sustainable future

The European Commission adopted the first strategic plan for Horizon Europe, the new EU research and innovation programme worth €95.5 billion in current prices. The strategic plan is a novelty in Horizon Europe and sets the strategic orientations for the targeting of investments in the programme's first four years. It ensures that EU research and innovation actions contribute to EU priorities, including a climate-neutral and green Europe, a Europe fit for the digital age, and an economy that works for people. An ambitious plan for an ambitious programme: The strategic plan sets out four strategic orientations for research and innovation investments under Horizon Europe for the next four years:

  • Promoting an open strategic autonomy by leading the development of key digital, enabling and emerging technologies, sectors and value chains;
  • Restoring Europe's ecosystems and biodiversity, and managing sustainably natural resources;
  • Making Europe the first digitally enabled circular, climate-neutral and sustainable economy;
  • Creating a more resilient, inclusive and democratic European society.

International cooperation underpins all four orientations, as it is essential for tackling many global challenges. The strategic plan also identifies the European co-funded and co-programmed partnerships and the EU missions to be supported though Horizon Europe. The partnerships will cover critical areas such as energy, transport, biodiversity, health, food & circularity, will complement the ten Institutionalised European Partnerships  proposed by the Commission in February.

Standards

A Standardization System fit for Future: CEN and CENELEC Unveil their Strategy 2030

Our world is changing faster than ever, driven by environmental and geopolitical changes and technological innovation. Such structural trends raise a variety of challenges across different regions and industries, and make for an unpredictable, at times even turbulent, market environment. However, these rapid changes also offer opportunities for growth and innovation.  Through the new Strategy, the CEN and CENELEC community aims at “Building a safer, more sustainable and competitive Europe through European and International Standardization”. To achieve this, the organisations state as their mission: “through our stakeholders’ networks, we create consensus-based standards in order to generate trust, fulfil market requirements, enable market access and innovations for a better, safer and more sustainable Europe”. 

The Strategy 2030 establishes a series of five goals that will guide CEN and CENELEC’s actions in the next decade:

  1. EU and EFTA recognize and use the strategic value of the European standardization system
  2. Our customers and stakeholders benefit from state-of-the-art digital solutions
  3. Increase the use and awareness of CEN and CENELEC deliverables
  4. The CEN and CENELEC system to be the preferred choice for standardization in Europe
  5. Strengthen our leadership and ambition at the international level

As a strategic framework for CEN, CENELEC and their respective members, the Strategy 2030 will provide a frame of reference to ensure complementarity, coherence and consistency across the strategic exercises and long-term objectives of all actors in the CEN and CENELEC community.

Digitization

ETSI Standard to Secure Digital Signatures Solves Issue For 4,000 Banks

ETSI is pleased to unveil ETSI TS 119 182-1, a specification for digital signatures supported by PKI and public key certificates which authenticates the origin of transactions ensuring that the originator can be held accountable and access to sensitive resources can be controlled. This standard is a major achievement for interoperability of digital signatures for a range of applications in today's digital economy including the banking and financial world where so far, some 4,000 banks were using various signing algorithms for their APIs to secure their online transactions. Called JAdES, ETSI TS 119 182-1 comes in support of secure communications fulfilling the requirements of the European Union eIDAS Regulation (No 910/2014) for advanced electronic signatures and seals and regulatory requirements for services such as open banking.

This JAdES digital signature specification is based on JSON Web Signature and contains the features already defined in the related ETSI standards for AdES (advanced electronic signature/seal) applied to other data formats including XML, PDF and binary. The standard was developed with contributions from a number of stakeholders including representatives from the banking sector who, through Open Banking Europe, have brought their operational requirements to align European APIs onto one security model. ETSI TS 119 182-1 can be used for any transaction between an individual and a company, between two companies, between an individual and a governmental body, etc. applicable to any electronic communications.

Smart Mobility

Commission welcomes agreement on the Connecting Europe Facility to fund greener, more sustainable transport and energy networks, and digitalisation

The European Commission welcomes the agreement reached by the European Parliament and the Council on the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) proposal, as part of the next long-term EU budget 2021-2027.

The Connecting Europe Facility programme supports investment in Europe's transport, energy and digital infrastructure networks. It will support the twin green and digital transition, by contributing to the ambitious targets for the European Green Deal and the Digital Decade.

It will support the goals of the Smart and Sustainable Mobility Strategy laying the foundation for how the EU transport system can achieve its green and digital transformation and become more resilient to future crises. As outlined in the European Green Deal, the result will be a 90% cut in emissions by 2050, delivered by a smart, competitive, safe, accessible and affordable transport system. It will also prioritise environmentally friendly modes such as rail and the development of charging points for vehicles using alternative fuels.

Standards

Standards@Rail: CEN and CENELEC celebrate the European Year of Rail

2021 is the European Year of Rail. On this occasion, CEN and CENELEC are proud to highlight the important role European standards play to ensure the well-functioning of a key sector for the future of Europe. Standardization on railways application is part of CEN and CENELEC’s wider work on transportation, a complex and large portfolio: it includes 1234 standards from CEN and CENELEC. These standards are mainly developed by two Technical Committees (TCs), CEN/TC 256 'Railway Applications' and CLC/TC 9X 'Electrical and electronic applications for railways'.

In particular, standards on rail cover a wide range of topics specifically related to railways applications (products, processes and services), such as, among others, safety, rolling stock capacity, system efficiency, as well as cybersecurity, digitalisation, and automatic couplings. This work on rail contributes massively to the development of safe, innovative and efficient railway systems infrastructure, rolling stock and systems, and supports the EU in its strategic ambitions.