 Good afternoon. A warm welcome to all of you to the launch of the IIEA publication, Europe's Digital Future, Perspectives from Northern Europe. My name is Joyce O'Connor and I chair the digital group here at the IIEA. Today's event marks the launch of the first joint report by leading think tanks and universities which explores perspectives on digital sovereignty from Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden. Let me first welcome, very warmly, and introduce to you our five authors who will present the findings of the research from their Member States perspective. From Denmark, Jan Ho-Smith, Senior Advisor and Think Tank from Think Tank Europa. From Estonia, Dr Adrian Venables, Senior Researcher from the Talon University of Technology. From Ireland, Seamus Allen, Digital Researcher at the IIEA. From the Netherlands, Dr Brighette Dekker, Researcher at the Klingendell Institute. And from Sweden, Gunnar Hopmark, Chairperson, Stockholm Free World Forum. I'm delighted to see you all again and we look forward to your presentations. Andrew Gilmore, Deputy Director of Research myself have edited the report. Each author will present the key findings of their papers for approximately five minutes and then I will go to you our audience for questions and answers. As you know, you'll be able to join our discussion by using the Q&A function at the bottom of the Zoom screen. Please feel free to send in your questions during the presentations and also to use Twitter and our Twitter handle is at IIEA. I will come to you once the speakers have finished their presentations and that is all the speakers. We have the five speakers speak one after another. Today's presentation as usual and the question and answer is on the record. The European Commission's President, Ursula van der Leyen, describes digital sovereignty as the capability that Europe must have to make its own choices based on its own values, respecting its own rules. Yet it has become a non-clear concept. What is clear, however, is that the issue of digital sovereignty is one that could have far-reaching consequences for the EU. Despite this to date, it hasn't garnered only limited debate at national level in many EU member states. This is the fifth event of a year-long IIEA project entitled Europe's Digital Future, supported by Google, which is exploring the topic of digital sovereignty in Europe, what this concept means and what future it might hurl for EU and for small open economies like Ireland. The views expressed in this event and in the associated publications are those of the authors alone. Today our authors will highlight the perspectives of Europe's digital front-runner states and they will assess whether and to what extent Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, and the Netherlands and Sweden have national debates or strategies on the topics that are related to digital sovereignty. They will identify key issues in the debate that are particularly relevant to their member state and offer an initial assessment of the possible implications of a digitally sovereign EU. Our first speaker today and author is Jan Holt-Smith from Think Tank, Europa. Jan will outline Denmark's view on the topic. He knows his country's more skeptical view of the concept of European digital sovereignty, but identifies that Denmark is amongst the top performers with respect to digital transformation, has recently launched a commission on digital partnership, and identifies important digital priorities which Denmark supports. Jan, over to you. We look forward to your presentation. Thank you very much. Good day to everybody joining this webinar and I'm looking very much forward to an interesting debate this afternoon. My main message is that the Danish government fear that an EU strategy for digital sovereignty may lead to EU protectionism and thus reduce innovation in the EU. Danish politicians basically prefer an EU regulatory approach that rests on one hand on European values traditions, but maintain an open competition with the rest of the world. Now on top of this traditionally the concept of sovereignty in relation to an EU political debate in Denmark usually refers to a Danish fear of losing national sovereignty to the EU. So the concept of digital sovereignty is a difficult one in a Danish political context. That said, the government and Danish industries and social partners broadly support the content of the EU digital compass as well as the main line in the commission proposals on the digital services act, the digital market act and the proposals on the artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, so far there is little public debate about the need for a strategy to speed up digital transformation of the Danish society and probably I mean on the one hand it is very much due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the situation related to that, but probably also due to the fact that Denmark is already among the European digital leaders. Nevertheless, the government has in March 2021 as you said, George established a Danish commission with representatives from industry and social partners plus experts to work out a strategy for continued Danish digital transformation and the mandate for this commission is broadly in line with the content of the EU digital compass strategy, if you may call it that, without however making any explicit reference to that EU strategy. And furthermore in June 2021, the government also launched a debate on regulation of the big tech firms drawing to a large extent on elements from the commission's proposals on the EU legislation. But as I said, not much public debate so far, but there are a couple of issues was mentioning from a debate amongst mostly experts so far that may turn to raise a public debate in the autumn. And the first one is the debate on the simplification of data protection. Another one could be a debate on the resources for the Danish data protection authority. I think you have the same debate in Ireland. And of course then also a debate on an EU digital tax may come up during the rest of 2021, depending of course how it goes with the international discussions and the discussions in the EU. As a few sort of concluding quick remarks, let me just highlight the following. As I said, an EU strategy based upon EU digital sovereignty is not a mobilizing strategy in Denmark. Competition with the rest of the world is regarded as very important for continued innovation. As for regulation, this should be based upon European values as suggested in the EU strategy, but EU should still be open to negotiations with key global partners about the concept of the regulation. Regulations of AI based on ex ante risks should be based on clear transparent criteria and rules and should preferably be worked out also in collaboration with global partners. Regulation of platforms should ensure compliance with rules of content. Special rules may be invested for mega platforms, gatekeepers, but the rules should again apply for EU as well as non-EU firms. And finally, as for the rollout of digital infrastructure and 5G, it could be worthwhile noting the Danish experience which is that in the context of the auctions of licenses for radio spectrums, the government has agreed with the operators that these there should be specific targets for the rollout in terms of timing and in terms of percentage of the populations. And that could maybe be also an element seeking up in general. Thank you very much, Joyce. Thank you very much, Jan Hoth, for that very clear presentation, the situation in Denmark. We now move to Dr Adrian Venables, who's a senior researcher in Teltech, the Talon University of Technology from Estonia. Estonia is an enthusiastic proponent of digital sovereignty. Adrian highlights the positive contribution Estonia can make to the development of European digital sovereignty by drawing on Estonia's position as a leader in digitalization. He will also discuss the role of digital identity and introduce us to the concept of data embassies. Over to you, Adrian. Joyce, thank you very much indeed and good afternoon everybody. My name is Adrian Venables and although I'm talking to you from the UK now, I work in Estonia at the University. If we could have my first slide please. That's fine. That's who I am. And second slide. Just to avoid any embarrassment if anybody is unclear of their northeastern Europe geography. There we are in the top right just below Finland and to the north of Latvia, bordering Russia. So having orientated ourselves, move to the next slide. A little bit of background for Estonia as we are not well known. Small population of 1.3 million, one of the least crowded countries in Europe. Over half the country is forest and bog, which is populated with bears, wolves, lynx and elk. And I'll point out at this moment that the photograph of the bear was taken by me last week on holiday and this was a bear spotting trip, not that I randomly encountered one. Highest point is only 300m above sea level, so a flat country. And Estonia in particular is known as the Silicon Valley of Europe, but in fact Estonia's reputation is based upon its digitalisation and its entrepreneurship with the highest number of start-ups per head in the population, with Estonians having invented Skype and a very technological city. Although for those who haven't yet visited Tallinn, it has also the best preserved medieval city in northern Europe, so well worth a visit, and has one of the highest literacy rates in the world. And although Estonian as a language is counted as the fourth hardest language for a native English speaker to learn, rest assured that the Estonians are some of the best English speakers in Europe and often put me to shame. So my next slide. So looking at that background, Estonia got its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and went through a rapid digital transformation. So digital sovereignty is not a new concept, the country is based upon the whole ideas of a digital identity and public services being online. So WIRED magazine in 1995 called it the world's most digital society, and it still ranks as number one in the European Commission's digital economy and society index. In reality, this counts for a virtually paperless government in which 99% of the transactions with the government are conducted online. So we pay our taxes online, online banking, our bank branches do not hold cash, we vote online, and we can access all our government records online, which is audited, and if I go to my government website and it will tell me who in the government has actually accessed my information, because it's a very open digital society. And this is all based upon a national identity. We all have an identity card which we can use for legally binding digital signatures. The only things we can't do digitally are marriage and divorce and property purchases, although that even is changing with the first elements of marriage documentation is now being carried out online. So next slide. So Estonia's digitalisation very much starts with an education system, a population that is brought up with online schooling, everything is based upon an online persona and a country that has totally embraced the concept of digital sovereignty. Now my findings discovered very much that greater digital sovereignty will benefit Estonia, its geography and small population is not well positioned for manufacturing within Europe, but is ideal for EU-wide digital services and the digital service industry. So Estonia knows this and so it embraces every aspect of promoting digital sovereignty within Europe for its own economic benefits. So we're looking at a concept of a digital single market which is a digital version of the single market within the EU, open markets, supply chains and bringing the continent and the EU closer together with less borders and with more seamless digital services and Estonia is aware that compared to other competitors such as the US and China because of the the nature of the EU for a number of sovereign countries, there's a danger of falling behind against these global competitors and so they're very keen to promote the digital sovereignty concept. So next slide please. So one thing that Estonia is very proud of and promotes very strongly is the concept of cybersecurity and this is obviously based upon the 2007 cyber attacks which is still fresh in the minds of many Estonians, those who were quite young, quite junior in government in 2007 and are quite senior and so they're very aware of the cyber attacks that we encountered and Estonia and Tallinn is home to the NATO cyber defence centre of excellence and so cyber security goes hand in hand with digital sovereignty and this is a concept which mustn't be forgotten and the two very much go go together for confidence both for government and for populations and linked to that is the concept of the digital embassy and Estonia is the first country to have a digital embassy in Luxembourg and essentially it enables all government records to be backed up outside of Estonia's borders and this means that in the event of a catastrophic cyber attack or natural disaster you can essentially back up and restore digital records of the country and this is particularly important in a painless society in which hard copies just do not exist of key aspects of government and personal data. Next slide please. So Estonia's recovery and resilience plan this is something that we looked at and for those not familiar with it this is an EU-wide plan in order to rebuild after the Covid pandemic and Estonia has requested nearly a billion euros in grants and very much this is based upon a number of headings which are listed there and the granularity of each of these subjects is not well defined yet so these are very much sort of headline areas that Estonia would like to invest in but as I say other countries, larger countries are more advanced in detail of how they would spend the money at the moment these are just headline areas and a total amount that has roughly been divided between these subjects. So my next slide please. So on my conclusions very much in comparison to the Denmark, Estonia, one of the first nations to digitise and it has really reached the economic and social benefits. The population of the government has regressed it essentially what it means to be Estonian is to be digital and so there are no issues nationally or politically about increasing digital sovereignty or any of the concepts that we will discuss this afternoon. Estonia still leads many areas within the EU in areas of digitalisation, the digital identity, digital online services, a paperless government, digital signatures, just the sheer nature of Estonian society is digital and as a result of this Estonia is quite clearly a keen and enthusiastic EU partner. We are very willing to contribute and also to lead in the areas in which we already have expertise and leadership and well-established principles and services within our society. And of course as well as being quite autistic towards the EU, as the Estonians are some of the most pro-EU states there are great benefits that Estonia will gain from greater EU digital sovereignty, an EU single market because with a entrepreneurial digital society, certainly Estonia sees that it will benefit from that in many areas. So yes Estonia is very much in the front line, Estonia is very keen to move forward and to develop with the rest of the EU and I think you'll find that's my final slide. So that's Estonia for you, thank you Joyce. A very clear presentation of what's happening in Estonia and I like that picture of that bear, I must say you were quite close to it. Yes they actually do put some food out for it so it wasn't completely random encounters it's a hide and they bring food out so it's not tame but it knows where to go. Nice photo all the same, thanks Adrian. We now move on to Ireland and Seamus Allen. Seamus is the digital researcher from the Institute of International and European Affairs here in Ireland and Seamus will highlight how the concept of digital sovereignty has received limited attention in Irish political discourse. The concept Seamus shows may however have implications for many of Ireland's key interests. Over to you Seamus, we look forward to your presentation. Thank you very much Joyce, Noah. I don't have any exciting pictures of bears or anything else unfortunately but I'll try and have a picture of a leprechaun for the next time. So yeah at the moment there hasn't really been that much public discussion or debate in Ireland about this concept of European digital sovereignty. It's not something that Irish politicians and policymakers have really explicitly commented upon that much. Nonetheless if you look at the European digital sovereignty agenda in Brussels it is possible to see topics that are really important for Ireland's interests so I think I'll start off I'll just say a few words about Ireland's broad approach to digitalisation at an EU level and then I might hone in on three particular topics. So I'll start with cross-border data flows, secondly Ireland's data protection role and then I might just say a few words about this topic of a European digital levy. So to start off on a broad level when it comes to the EU Ireland's approach to digitalisation regarding promoting it and regulating it. Ireland like most of the other countries here strongly supports investing and spending to promote digitalisation at an EU level. Recently the Irish Prime Minister, Chisholk Mihal Martin, actually commented that he would favour a much more expansive and ambitious European budget. With regards to Ireland's own recovery and resilience plan about a third of all funding is being allocated to digital so that is significantly more than the 20 per cent required by the European Commission. Now nonetheless if you look at some of the specific targets in the plan it could be queered or some of them really that ambitious or sufficiently ambitious. In other cases maybe some more detail needs to be fleshed out and to be revealed to see how significant they will be. When it comes to regulating digital at the EU level Ireland again has quite a clear position. In general Ireland favours a regulatory environment that it sees as being innovation friendly. It's quite concerned to prevent regulation that could be overburdened someone that could stifle innovation unnecessarily. I think this can be seen quite clearly in Ireland's submission say on the Digital Services Act package on the AI white paper from last year and throughout Ireland like most of the other countries represented here is very supportive of an open Europe and Europe that's open to the rest of the world. As to going on to the first of the topics that I mentioned cross-border data flows well personal data and the possible misuse personal data I think that's always been at the heart of this discussion of European digital sovereignty. It was what prompted it to become very prominent for the first time and since then the GDPR has imposed an awful lot of restrictions on the flow of personal data outside the EU to the rest of the world for Ireland that's especially significant because it's two largest trade partners the United Kingdom and the United States are of course aren't in the EU. Now up until very recently there was the EU US privacy shield which facilitated data transfers but that wasn't validated last year by the Court of Justice of the European Union that prompted an awful lot of uncertainty. At the moment a lot of companies are using standard contractual clauses to continue those transfers but this is quite legally contentious it's being challenged and if it were to be undermined it could be very economically significant. With regards to the United Kingdom at the end of last month the European Commission finalized the data adequacy decision for the UK which will enable free flows of data however there was some pushback from the European Parliament from the European Data Protection Supervisor as a result of that there's a number of caveats attached to this and most importantly if UK law changes this decision can be reviewed and it will automatically lapse after four years. The reason that's so important is a lot of UK politicians and policymakers have talked about the possible benefits of diverging from the GDPR following Brexit and if that were to happen significantly it could undermine that process. Now regarding the economic size of all this this is something I look at more in the paper I think there's a broad consensus that if data flows were to be very significantly disrupted it could have quite harmful economic consequences for Europe as a whole and particularly for Ireland. Going on to my second topic that I mentioned so this is Ireland's data protection role this is very closely related to the first so Ireland is very disproportionately the home and headquarters for many multinational technology and digital companies in Europe and under the GDPR's one-stop-shop mechanism this means that Ireland is effectively the lead regulator for these companies further conduct right throughout Europe not just for Irish citizens but for European citizens as well so even though Ireland's data protection commission the DPC has been receiving significantly more resources in recent years it's still be receiving a lot less than what it has been asking for it's been pointing to this very disproportionate responsibility that it bears and Ireland's coming under increasing attention right across Europe from privacy activists from data protection regulators elsewhere some of them have been criticising the DPC's processes its procedures querying if it has sufficient resources as a result of this the Irish parliament and the European parliaments have hoped be looking into this and scrutinising the issue and in May the European Parliament passed a resolution asking the commission to bring in infringement proceedings against Ireland in June there was a very significant ruling again as a result of some of this pressure which clarified for the first time that data protection regulators elsewhere in Europe can bring cases against companies based in Ireland under specific conditions in specific circumstances but it's clear that there are regulators elsewhere in Europe who would be eager to do so so it's likely that Ireland would come under increase in pressure and scrutiny in the years ahead. Moving on to this topic of the European digital levy a proposal from the commission was due to be published this month now that's being postponed it's going to be looked at again in the autumn this was due to the ongoing OECD led tax talks on corporate tax reform that's also important for Ireland because it makes the background more sensitive it's expected that Ireland will lose very significantly in corporate tax revenues and while we don't know the specific details what will be in this digital levy the digital tax that was proposed by the commission back in 2018 that was blocked by Ireland at a number of other EU member states there was a concern that Ireland could become less attractive as an investment location but there could be a loss of corporate tax revenues this time there's an added concern about trade relations with the United States so quite a number of EU member states have at a national level introduced digital taxes of some form or another and the US including under Biden has threatened trade tariffs and retaliation viewing these as largely affecting American firms now the digital commissioner Margaret Vestier has said that this levy will actually affect hundreds of companies that most of those companies will be European but we will need to see you know the specific details of what is in this levy to talk more about the implications so to wrap up I think it's fair to say that this digital sovereignty agenda will touch on many issues that are very important for Ireland I've outlined some areas where Ireland has strong concerns nonetheless there's of course areas where Ireland is a lot more positive I mentioned you know Ireland support for ambitious spending and investment to promote digitalisation there's also digital challenges such as cyber security and disinformation where Ireland has been quite vocal in saying that no member state is large enough to address the challenge by itself that countries can deal with them more effectively working together and to conclude I think it's fair to say that Ireland needs to be very alert to this digital sovereignty agenda as it develops in the years ahead and that it will be very important for many aspects of Irish economy and the Irish society thank you for much choice thanks very much Seamus for that very clear presentation of what's happening in Ireland we move next now to the Netherlands and Dr Brigette Decker a researcher from the Klinigela Institute and she will look at the prominent discussion on digital sovereignty taking place in the Netherlands the establishment of a permanent parliamentary committee on digital affairs in 2021 and I suppose the other area that Brigette will look at is looking at the Netherlands trying to find a balance between stakeholders and interests concerning national security economic security and digitalisation. Brigette sees the Netherlands playing an active role in shaping Europe's digital policies over to you Brigette. Yes thank you so much Joyce it's an honor to be here today and kind of represent the Netherlands in this timely debate let me start with saying that digitalisation has most of the agenda in the Netherlands for example as you said in the parliamentary elections of last March every political party acknowledged the importance of digitalisation in a broad range of topics and as you already mentioned there was a parliamentary committee on digital affairs installed just to keep the parliament up to date with the latest digital matters and in the Netherlands especially when discussing the EU's international influence digitalisation is included in the debate but in this domain the Netherlands is still exploring its precise course of action for example the Netherlands digitalisation strategy was adopted in 2018 which was quite early compared to some other EU member states and its reaction to the digital compass the Netherlands welcomed for example the efforts made to create a digital single market and highlights the geopolitical dimension of the digitalisation but it also states that the government of the Netherlands was quite disappointed that the digital compass made no reference to the white paper on AI or the EU cybersecurity strategy which also already highlights some of the key areas the Dutch government is interested in and I think the key issues in the Netherlands can be summed up as follows first you have the ability of the government to govern national digital infrastructure secondly you have the strong liberal market tradition in the Netherlands and the need for regulation and thirdly the dominant position of foreign platforms and the use of citizens data so if we start with the first one the national digital infrastructure of course I do not have to repeat the whole 5G debate that has been taking place for quite some years now if you look beyond this debate one can observe that in the Netherlands this debate can be split into two dimensions first you have the espionage risk of foreign entities providing the specific technological know-how and then you have in the other side you have the financial considerations of companies and especially the connection between those two dimensions is not worthy because in the Netherlands companies are having serious doubts of investing in and by the government markets trustworthy infrastructure if the price is too high so it's not only a matter of national security for companies it's also just a market that they have to adhere to and secondly the Netherlands has a strong liberal market tradition with little to no market interference economics and politics however have become intertwined due to the state-backed enterprises that are largely had courted in China and in response to some hostile mergers and acquisitions from both the US and China a new and intense debate on industrial policies have started in the Netherlands the debate is characterized by a multi-stakeholder approach which is everything in the Netherlands with the inclusion of a murderous pallet of actors the Netherlands feels that challenges can be better identified and corresponding solutions and opportunities can be better executed as it has sufficient support and cooperation from all parties involved but we now see that while we are super proud of our polar methods as we call it the divergent interest and consensus-based model can also impede now effective and decisive decision-making in the digital domain especially because it's moving forward so quickly and lastly the dominant position of foreign social media platforms foreign platforms and the use of citizens data is becoming a subject of discussion in the Netherlands is there still a discussion that is on the rise the first two elements are much more discussed in the Netherlands but you see that in the Netherlands the US business model depending on the free flow of data and thereby enabling companies to use large data sets to innovate scale up and expand their businesses is not really is not complimenting our view on data sharing and on the other end of the spectrum of course you have China strictly regulating all data and numerous popular western platforms that are banned from state security reasons so currently the EU the Netherlands we are all trying to establish a position in this debate and we are really following the EU's way by introducing by supporting the third way the EU is now introducing and while there's no call to ban platforms that spread illegal or harmful content in similar ways as for example the chinese government does there is a call for regulation within the Netherlands and the intentions have been clear consumers need to provide consent to companies to use their data and companies need fellow's reasons to keep the data of the personal data of consumers and in addition to this every debate states that the citizens need to know that they can request request access to the companies and you meant that your data has to be deleted if there's no necessity to keep it for their services and in that way the best debate is also about providing citizens with the right information and not just companies so they can also have the individual digital sovereignty if you like to call it that way and to give you an example of how it's now arranged is practically mostly focusing on companies because it has less to 12 actual fines in the Netherlands in a period from 2018 to 2020 and with an average of four fines per year a company does not seem to run excessive risk at the moment of getting fined because they are not handling personal data of consumers the right way so you can draw two conclusions from this number either companies that here's really strictly to the GDPR regulations or data of the citizens is still be for sale to say it like that looking at the time I will stop now so we have some still some time for debate but thank you for your excellent presentation of what's happening in the Netherlands now we come to our last speaker an author from Sweden Gunnar Hockmark who's the chairperson of Stockholm Free World Forum Gunnar presents the perspective from Sweden highlighting Sweden's preference for Europe that is open and competitive which does not seek to close itself off from an increasingly digital world thank you Gunnar and we look forward to your presentation. Joyce and thanks to RIA for this event because I think it is high time that we do discuss not only that we want to be successful but how we get successful everyone wants to be successful but sometimes very few discuss the choices you need to make in order to get successful and regarding digitalization it is crucial for our economies and our societies to be in the lead because otherwise it will influence our societies as a whole then we will be back war societies and economies losing competitiveness and we will not be in the lead for the innovations that will mark the defining factors in the coming decades. I think that how to get successful in some way you can trace it to this discussion and to the participants in it because RIA you have chosen a number of representatives from countries that are quite successful in digitalization. I noted with the joy that most of our speakers underlined how successful its country is in this and a number of different indexes etc and I think this is the consequence of these countries and some others being first of all very relaxed or positive to digitalization. It has not been a discussion about how to regulate in the sense to slow down or to avoid it. Most of our countries have been positive in action in order to enforce digitalization and the other important parameter is of course our economies and I think that is a common denominator for the participants or the participating countries here is that it's a view on economies and open economy open for competition and open in a global sense but that is quite crucial and if we look upon things if you want to be a leading digital economy and leading digital society of course you need to use all the things that come to you across the world. If you don't use the best technologies or the best algorithm or the best platforms or the best ways of doing whatever you will always use the second best or maybe the third best and then you as a society will not be in the lead anymore but you will not get the dynamic development in your own society if you fence yourself off from this development and that's why the item of digital sovereignty has in reality never been a discussion very much in Sweden but I noted that our Estonian friends underlined the importance of digital sovereignty and they struck me that sometimes we can mean different things with sovereignty in Swedish when you say sovereign you can mean it in two ways either you're sovereign in the meaning independent and on your own or that you're a leader a sovereign player leading the game so to say and I think this is the only way for us ahead to try to be the best and not be the best by fencing ourselves off from others. I think it is in the great nature of digitalisation that is open because it gives you access to knowledge new innovations new ideas from all over the world and it makes you rich in that sense and if you can use that in different ways in your own society you will become successful and I think this is one of the reasons why our economies our societies are quite successful in this area and not forget some others are not and I think in Sweden we have a rather relaxed view of this we have also seen and I think we are used to the fact that the digital development is by its own nature full of disruptive developments and surprises I mean a lot of things we do today will be seen as sci-fi 10 years ago or 20 years ago I mean we can participate in a webinar like like this sitting in a car or walking around in the city I mean we wouldn't have believed that's even five years ago and the interesting thing is that in five years time we will be just a surprise what has happened since now and this is for me a defining thing about how to be a leader not to fence yourself off from changes developments new innovations take them on bring them on and I think there is a common denominator in the Swedish strategy sometimes outspoken and very defined but sometimes just setting up the goals that we need to have an extremely good infrastructure that is broadband that is the development of 4G and 5G to have the best possible connections and I think what is over has been overseen we also to have the highest level of digital security because the more digitalization becomes a natural part of the whole of our society than the most strategic important it is that we have digital security we need to enforce and enable digital innovation but also see to that we can get more of digital management in public service and wherever we are and that individual citizens have the digital skills this is not about fencing off this is about enabling and securing that we have the capacities and the capabilities in Europe and I think that is much more important to try to be sovereign in the way some mean I think we shall be sovereign in the way I think we mean and our countries have experienced thank you very much very much Donner for showing us the Swedish perspective but also perhaps highlighting that issue about the the concept itself of digital sovereignty how sovereign means about enabling and one of the first speakers we had on this subject in this series was Roberto Viola and he kind of dismissed the kind of general concept or not concept definition of digital sovereignty but said it really was about empowerment and that's really what you're saying it's about empowerment but thank you all very much for your excellent presentations I think they showed the variety and the combination of commonalities between each country but I think what has been really interesting for me and for I think for our audience has been the range of differences and yet at the end that commonality which will make us all work together for you know a better life for our own citizens but also for Europe but I see some questions coming in and I'm conscious of time so I'm going to go to the questions right away and the first question I'm going to ask you in the order that you spoke if that's okay maybe to answer this question and it says Europe wants to uphold European values through European rules and also to make Europe a digital technology leader how can Europe find the right balance between regulating and promoting digital technologies where will this be particularly challenging Jan we start with you thank you well that's that's a really difficult issue because finding the right balance between let's say being faithful to one's traditions and values of course is very important but there are always I mean other elements that you would have to bring in to to this let's say equation and this balance so I think that that's a difficult but I think Gono's point on the capabilities is important I mean if if we do not have the capabilities our values will not be the leading values in the world if we want to have that and the other thing is that we also need to bear in mind that the kind of regulation that we put on industries be it in the digital sector in the proper sense or more widely in the digitalization of industries needs to be as light as possible but that doesn't prevent us from for example taking some bold decisions on saying okay let's try to see whether we see X on an X and the basis very high risk in certain areas and then say okay we may have a different regulation in those areas and a very much lighter regulation in other areas but it's it's not something where you just find a blueprint like this and Sean and Adrian yeah I think this is a this is a really good question and it gets very much of the heart of the matter I said before in a discussion with the panelists that the EU regulates but other countries innovate and regulation is straightforward you get people together they decide on a list of constraints constraints and you enforce that the issue is how we within the EU innovate with the technology to promote the concepts that we want within digital sovereignty and we need to look at where we source the technology from that we need are we going to create that technology within the EU which will have longer lead times and perhaps more be more expensive than perhaps China who would have the technology and be very willing to sell us that technology now that's available at a cheap price but brings with it security and other and other concerns so this is very much a an issue of taking a realistic view we need to determine the the regulations that we need in order to maintain the the principles and democracy and the freedoms within the EU and so nations which are up to now have more reticence and reluctance to embrace the concept of digital sovereignty will be reassured and brought on board but also that we can guarantee that there will be that that security and that ownership and the control over the data of which digital sovereignty is absolutely key so there's two elements this question there's the there's a regulation aspects but also how it links in with the availability and the capability of the technology that's needed thanks Adrian, James would you like to comment yeah thank you Jules I'll just maybe add one or two things to what was already mentioned I think Gunnar touched on something very important actually which is the speed of technological change you know we could pass a regulation today and that regulation could be out of date in five years time or ten years time and I guess something regulators talking off a lot about is trying to make regulation future proof and I think that's you know an admiral goal it's something that should be aimed at but I think some of the time I would be skeptical can we is that something that's actually achievable that we need a fail safe because we can try to abstract away from any particular specific technology to make something future proof but there might always be something ahead that we just don't expect at all that doesn't seem foreseeable and we maybe need to factor that in and think about it if it's at all possible and there's a couple of principles that should be born in mind I suppose one is being future proof one is being a risk-based approach you know you obviously want tougher regulations where the risks are far more serious and then focusing on what's reasonably foreseeable so some comments have been made about the EU's proposals on artificial intelligence for example which are quite interesting is this idea the EU's proposing regulations for a whole range of sectors where AI will be used and yet at the minute AI isn't being used in those sectors and one criticism that was made is well how can we regulate something that you know just isn't being used and we haven't seen it being used as of yet and I guess the other side to that is when it comes to high risk AI you know it's maybe too late to wait until it's being used or until it's caused actual harm and negative consequences so there's something you need to think about what's reasonably foreseeable where are the risks how do we make it proportionate so I think it's it's definitely a struggle and it's definitely a balancing act and that's all I have to add on it I think. Thanks Seamus Brigitte would you like to add to that? Yeah yeah definitely I think what's also important in this debate is what are the precise values of the European Union what do we talk about precisely I think between the member states as already discussed just as the concept of digital sovereignty I think between the member states will also be a difference between what is what is meant by human centered or human centric and for me and in the Netherlands it's mostly about digital innovation that works for users and consumers with people really central in the debates is privacy for example as a primary issue and also looks at the sustainability of a particular digital innovation and that together makes human centered but I'm also wondering what the other member states is oppressive to today would feel about that and then I think we also have to from from here on forward we also have to think about the rules and being a digital leader as the rest already said indeed I think we can try to do those things hand in hand we need to create alternatives innovate to compete with the US and China not only in Europe but also abroad and create regulation and at the same time that is also attracted to other companies and other governments and is flexible to actually adapt to the future because I only think then you can actually include innovation and regulation together in a human centered perspective thanks for data and finally Connor what do you think thank you I think there are two things we need to keep in mind and first is that if Europe is not in the lead for the technological innovation we will never be able to uphold European values then other values will dominate just make the experimental thought that China had been the leading economy for the last 30 years and regarding the development of internet I would ethical and legal standards then being developed and that is the true challenge we have in the next coming decades we will only be able to uphold European values by being in the lead regarding innovations and taking the first steps the Chinese economy will probably be bigger but we can be better and that must be fundamental clue for thought and that is as mentioned before we need to secure that we can regulate in the way that we innovate not regulate away the innovations yeah the thing is we must stop talking about digitalization or the digital thing as some sector in our society is an integrated part of everything it's not dramatic it's not future it is exactly where we are now and that means that European values and legislation must be uphold in the same way when we speak in this forum as when we speak in a real live meeting we need to secure show must mention it must be future proof I would really like to agree on that but I would also like to add it must be as long and as far as possible be technology neutral we shall not have special regulations for the digital sector because there exists no digital sector the digital is it's just like having special regulations for electricity I mean we do have I mean you you can't do the plugs of different kinds if they are dangerous but in Vienna we don't regulate how to use electricity and this is wider and more or more I mean 3G was a development of telecom 4G was a development of integrated services 5G is about everything and then you can't regulate digital as it is a special thing it is all and everything and we need to have a neutrality recording technology then we uphold European values. Gunnar thanks for that I mean I think increasingly all of you have raised the issue of values human centric and also the importance of flexibility and as you've said Gunnar being technically neutral or technologically neutral but having said that I wonder what do you think and I'm going to start with you with Gunnar on this what emerging technologies or specific aspects of digitalization do you think we may currently require greater attention from policymakers than it has to date you know are we just you know focusing on certain types of technology like AI obviously cybersecurity is terribly important but are there your point about you know being technologically neutral how can we kind of look at what's coming in front of us and try to develop them as well. This is of course the important and difficult thing but I think it is in the zone between what we call algorithm and artificial intelligence where the real problems and challenges will be we need to be in the lead but we also do need to think about how technology works in order to be technology neutral and it's easy to see some areas where it will become extremely difficult it has to be about health and medicine and privacy it is about how to use big data without interfering with private integrity it is about a number of things but I think nothing of this will have no leverage in nothing of this if we are not in the lead because otherwise others will do what they think is the best and then we will in reality have to follow so I think and it's easy and trivial to say but I think it is in the boundaries between what we call algorithm and artificial intelligence they're more or less the same of course but how they are used and projected in different areas like medicine and other things and of course security will become so extremely important we have seen how Chinese and Russian groups linked to the states have done a lot of damage in the US and in Europe and the more we are depending on the digital structures the more dangerous that will be. Thanks Conor and we have a question here which I'm going to ask you again if that's okay from O'Connor from Enterprise Ireland and he says as an Irishman living in Sweden it is take me time to get all the benefits of digital society here as you must have a Swedish identity number first which takes many months in the future for this European Digital Society to work as many other EU members have these barriers for non-natives could it be necessary for EU citizens to skip this process or be fast tracked when moving to other EU countries and in a way that links to Adrian's point about digital identity but perhaps Conor you might answer that from the Swedish point of view. Yes and I'm grateful for this question because it's underlining the fact that Sweden is quite successful in digitalization but not revolving public sector we are lagging behind and I think it's terrible to him but first of all of course Swedish bureaucracy in this sense needs to be better and we are increasing the use of digital structures in public sectors with a very good use of digital identity and digital legitimation and of course the ground solution here is to have a European identity and European digital legitimation that would solve these problems very rapidly and I think it's quite close in time. Adrian can I bring you in on that and then I bring in Gianna Brigette and it's Seamus. Yes Joyce, to ask you this I think Conor's point of the digitalization of public services within Estonia as part of the residency process you get a identity number essentially you can't do anything without this number and it comes with your residency but even if you don't have physical residency within Estonia the country was one of the first to bring in the concept of the e-residency and so anybody can apply for Estonian e-residency and that will actually give you this magic personal number and will enable you to digitalize signed documents and be able to set up a company in Estonia from outside the country and so from Estonia's perspective it's a good way of raising income because you obviously have to pay for these e-residency cards and there's obviously some tax that comes from having companies within the country and so that concept of making digitalization at the heart of society and at the heart of government services is that mindset but I absolutely agree with Donna in that you need to have if not a single EU identity but have the national identity cards transferable and be understood so essentially my health record in Estonia if I'm traveling and have an accident in Spain I can give this same card to the Spanish health authorities who will be able to access my health records from Estonia in Spain that's really the concept you know the pinnacle of digital sovereignty but within that you also have to have that security and the insurance and the confidence of the use of that data and notice the second question that's on the site there from Declan where data is key and absolutely and it's the availability and security and integrity of that data which is at the heart of digital sovereignty. Brigitte do you think there is that mindset in the Netherlands in relation to digital identity and the trust to create that one entry point for all data? I'm in doubt on the one hand I think there is we already have like a digital identity but only for government affairs so we can we can see our our study or our subsidies in it so that that part is arranged quite well but everything else it's it's still a mystery for the Netherlands I feel we now are having discussions on the digital government to update everything but I think in this it will be key how how much we already take the European digital identity in accounts I think it will be key that we do not have 27 digital identities that do not connect with the European digital identity so yeah I think if we can if we can use that and the debate on the digital identity European digital identity is going forward now I think from the Netherlands we will go right but we will not be the frontrunner in this I think the countries like Estonia and like Sweden will be much further ahead that was already. Jan will Denmark be one of the frontrunners? Well that's that's a bit difficult to say I mean we already have a central sort of registration number and had it for years and years and years and it is now digitalized and we have I mean as I mentioned in my part of the publication we have a very high level of digitalized sort of transactions between the public and the public sector. That said I mean you need to develop in the public sector further on how you can simplify things especially also between the public sector and smaller medium-sized enterprises. The other thing on the European level I think that what the way to work forward would first of all be to have national digitalized registration numbers and then we need to have the different systems being able to speak together but that requires quite a lot of security and that requires also quite a lot of political will I'm sure of in various different. Seamus how do you think we would respond to that to having that digital identity here and also you know related to government services but also linked in then to a European identity access number if you like. I think Ireland is very supportive of completing the digital single market and a digital identity will be quite important for that. I think when it comes to the digitalization of public services it's something Ireland is very well aware of. The recovery and resilience plan actually specifically calls out digitalizing public services as one of the objectives one of the areas where money is going to be invested. Looking at the European Commission's digital index of performance across states when it comes to digitalization of society and digitalization of public services it's an area where Ireland does do relatively well and I think the Irish government wants to continue doing well there and to increase its spending there so it's an area I think where Ireland does see benefits. And just in relation to that then just as our final question how do you all assess the Member States recovery and resilience plan with regard to investing in digitalization because you've all mentioned the importance of innovation but innovation needs resources so what do you think about that fund is it as our own T-Shark has suggested that we should go back for more if we want to really maximize the impact of digitalization. Might start with you Brigette. Yes thank you. I'm not sure how to answer this question I mean on the one hand I think it's really how do you say that so the recovery and resilience fund is really needed to build and I think digitalization has to be at the heart of it but it has to be integrated in all parts I really agree with Gunnar it is not just the digital sphere it's related to everything so I think also in the recovery and resilience plan digitalization should be included in everything but not as the specific sector as a whole. Yeah Adrian what do you think? There's been some work done analysing the Estonian bit and something's been quite critical saying that the detail isn't there yet and I think that's again one of the issues of a small country which is already fairly digitalized looking at how it can best spend this money so within the wider balance I think digitalization is not as prominent as perhaps some other countries within the EU applying for funding and the Estonian government is looking for funding in other areas where it is lacking so I don't think this fund will be of huge benefit to an already digitalized country but will perhaps be used in other in other areas. And Gunnar what about Sweden? It has invested a lot in innovation though hasn't it as well as looking to this fund? No I think the fund is of course important but I want to come back to that as well this is dangerous to say that we have some digital issues and some other things because we don't have some other things for example all the big car manufacturers are going electrical more or less or totally from 2030 there will be no petroleum driven cars produced in Europe after that I think and the electric cars are increasing it's rather that the public sector and public infrastructures are not adopting to the pace of the development we need for example to have much higher capacities for production of electrical power because otherwise you will not have the breakthrough for electrical cars and electrical trucks you need to have adopt legislation in order to facilitate I can take one very concrete example to facilitate for more rapid payments I mean in European Parliament I was taking part in this and we changed it and forced it through so making it possible for all the new fintech companies to compete with the traditional banks all banks were not happy about that but all customers are quite happy yes so I think it's much more adopting to the reality than trying to regulate the reality if you see my point yes and shame is that point then that you know we are the digital economy it is the economy it is society how do you react to these special funds then have they helped in Ireland's case do you think well with regards to the recovery and resilience plan I think there's kind of six or seven main objectives listed in that plan for where the money is going to go and as I mentioned the amount of money being allocated as a proportion of the total funding is quite significant and it's above what the commission required but when you look at some of the specific objectives one is for example you know ensuring schools of ICT equipment and internet connection obviously that's very important but perhaps it's something that should be seen as kind of you know being a better minimum in this day and age rather than an excellent goal that'll be achieved and that'll make this society very digital another one then is digitalizing the census which again is you know very important but again maybe could be seen as something that's a bare minimum and then another relates to eHealth which you know again is similar but it's going into another area and then of course there is money about promoting digitalization more generally in the public services or uptake amongst businesses and like Adrian mentioned it'll be you know it'll be with regards to what's in the details of how that's going to play out I think that's going to be very important and Jan I leave you with the final word on this on the resilience and recovery fund well thank you very much let let me say briefly three small things first of all in the Danish case 25 percent is in the in the plan in the Danish plan is devoted to digitalization projects and and they are spread a bit around second point is that we should not just look at these plans they will be important but they are much more important for a number of countries with lesser means than for example Denmark Sweden Ireland others and therefore we have to look to other parts and that's the third issue here that is the budget in itself whether or not there is enough money for that and then you have of course the discussion should it go to the agricultural should it go to facilitate etc but in that context we also need to take care of that I mean we need private of course investments also we also need private investments to back up or take the lead in certain areas even even in laying out infrastructure but to have that we also need to enable private business to for example enter into cross border mergers in order to have I mean the capacity to make the investments thank you very much Jan and I'm sorry we can't have any more question Declan I see there's a question you've come in there with perhaps we'll get it at another time but thank you all very much for your presentations Adrienne, Jan, Seamus, Gunnar and Brigitte they were very very interesting and I think created a picture of Europe and the possibilities in the future I think you highlighted the various perspectives on digital sovereignty digital policies strategies issues and challenges but I think a number of things emerged which are really important and about the importance of leadership and vision if you want to be a leader you have to be as Gunnar has said on a few occasions you have to be the best you have not only to be the best you have to have a vision to be the best in order to be the best you need to compete all of you made that point there needs to be competition and yet at the same time there needs to be that openness to work with others to work with the US and Seamus has raised the issue about the UK but the importance of that transnational relationship is critical and it seems to me that you're all saying that challenge that balance between creating that in a sense competitiveness entrepreneurship leadership in Europe will only happen ironically if we compete with ourselves and with Europe and of course the key thing I think that's come across and I think it's important and has been mentioned a number of times is that the economy isn't digital it's the economy we've now moved on I think years ago we talked about digital this and digital that but now it's such an integral part there's nothing in our lives that aren't impacted by digital so I think that's really important and the challenges ahead to because the president of the commission very clearly at the beginning of this year two agendas the digital agenda and the green agenda and both the digital agenda and that sustainability agenda are going to be the dual transformers of our societies of Europe but also Europe within in an international stage and I think you know you raised and I know you've raised in your papers about that link with other countries outside Europe and China but also central and all of you have made this are values and the human-centric approach of Europe all the regulations really cut through that issue about values and regulations that have to take that into account one of the things I think you've mentioned too is the importance of innovation and regulation and that how do you square those off as well but the importance of investing resources into that area we got we only touched on digital tax but the probably that was a wise thing because conversations are still going on maybe the next time we meet it might be more prevalent but it obviously is going to have an impact on all of us and obviously particularly in Ireland but digital identity I think that was really important that came out as a key topic Estonia lead the way perhaps and that but it really is through digital services government services so we are really encouraging everybody to look at that aspect of digital identity all the issues that go with it because it's linked to data it's linked to data protection and it's linked to privacy but I suppose the other thing is how do we foster these relationships how do we work together on an integrated way to make ourselves leaders global leaders but also give that coherence to Europe I think your papers have created an absolutely great framework to promote discussion and debate and research around this issue and learn from each other so thank you very much for that we look forward to continuing the debate in September so thank you all very much Jan, Adrian, Seamus, Brigitte and Gunnar for your excellent presentations and for helping start this really important debate which I think we're going to hear more of. I'd like to thank our audience for your participation today and for your questions and we hope to see you in the autumn and I'd like to thank our colleagues in the IIEA for the proofreading the graphic design with Emeril Riley and their support and also to Lorcan Mullally for the production side at the IIEA and of course thanks to Seamus and Andrew Bilmore for your work on this event and report so we wish you all a really good summer though it's beginning to rain here I'm in Perry it's raining unfortunately but we see this on coming up later today so I hope you continue to take great care see you in September and until then have a have a good summer and a good break goodbye for now goodbye to all of you