EU – Baltic States, Good for Business, Internet, Legislation, Technology

Commissioner Neelie Kroes pronounced her worries about Europe missing large parts of the digital opportunity and expressed concerns that Europe might continue to stagnate in the “digital sense”.

Starting point in Neelie Kroes’ 5-years work since 2010 was to “get every European citizen digital”. Main idea in the EU’s digital revolution was not “about gadgets, but about people” and about including them in a new digital way of organising socio-economic development. 

However, there is still a problem of “two Europe’s”: a digital Europe and an analogue Europe or a digital mind-sets and analogue mind-sets.

A definite positive thing is that Europe becomes the only continent in the world where every person really can access to at least basic broadband. Besides, 7 in 10 Europeans go online at least once a week; nearly every business is net-connected by choice. But that’s not enough…

Asians’ lead

In the history of communications technology (ICT) before 1940-50s almost everything was European: telephone, radio, television, computing devices. Then, the United States became more prominent. But even so, after the war it was still Europe that developed the mobile phone, the CD, Bluetooth and the first personal computer, and finally the GSM standard for mobiles, and text messaging. But then with the spread of the internet the US started taking over. 

However, looking over the last 30 years, it is evident that Asian innovations are taking over Europe and rivaling the US while European researchers were fading into the background.

Statistics show that in Sweden, the UK or Netherlands, Germany, Italy, etc. citizens have 4G and nearly everyone is online. However, fast broadband infrastructure and skills are sometimes non-existent in Europe.

For example, Koreans’ Samsung research and development achievements have shown that Europe’s previous global lead in innovation and in digital technology is in the past.

Different Europe

The problem is, argued the Commissioner, that there are presently two Europe: a digital Europe and an analogue Europe with correspondingly a digital mind-set and analogue one and they rarely talk to each other.

There is a Europe that is full of energy and digital ideas: a growing start-up scene with thousands of people who are the smartest in the digital world with Skype to Spotify to SAP, from Rovio to Booking.com to Campus Party. With a young generation that uses their digital devices and apps and new ways of building communities and businesses, the progress is assured.

Europe could feel optimistic with half of new jobs coming from the ICT-enabled jobs. This Europe is mobile and flexible, looking for new opportunities and cherishing innovations.

But there is a second Europe which is afraid of the digital future, argued the Commissioner. They worry about where the new middle class jobs will come from. They don’t want to jump off what they see as a digital cliff. They like the comforting idea of putting up walls; to many people it makes sense to restrict Americans and Asians and protect against their innovations. They tend to be older and tend to want strong regulations protecting what they know, instead of taking a chance on what they don’t know.

Neither side is 100% right. But corporate leaders and political leaders have a choice about how lead people to the more realistic and hopeful side of those debates. They have a choice about how to approach their responsibility to lead.

It comes down to a vital question: are Europe’s leading politicians willing to go on through innovation and start-ups? Or is Europe going to be exhausted by using up its energy safeguarding vested interests, and holding up ancient ideas? 

Vital issues

Future development is about reinventing “progressive paths”; this time it is about a digital renaissance based on an open mindset and a belief to be the best. There is no a definite and final answer, but such renaissance is possible (Estonian e-governance strategy is an example); but there are too many leaders still refusing to take up their responsibility.

The EU itself is getting the message: in the new Commission there are three commissioners “replacing” Neelie Kroes’ path of achievements: “ordinary” digital commissioner (G. Oettinger), Commission vise-president for the “digital single marker” (A. Ansip) and an “ordinary” commissioner for science and innovations (C. Moedas). So, digital agenda is becoming more complicated to perform and deliver…  

In finding “better ways”, a dialogue with the grassroots efforts of young digital talents is needed; the grassroots efforts are real. Vital is an initiative like EU Code Week, which did not exist 18 months ago, and in mid-October there were 3,000 events across Europe: they were mostly self-organised, with some help from tech companies.

Reference: European Commission, Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda; SPEECH/14/710 “Two Europe or One Europe? 22 October 2014; in: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-14-710_en.htm