Commission launches public consultation on the Digital Europe programme

Today the European Commission launched a consultation on the orientation of the first two years of its proposed Digital Europe programme. As part of the next long-term EU budget for 2021-2027, the programme would invest €9.2 billion in five key areas: supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and ensuring a wide use of these digital technologies across the economy and society. It will enable European governments and industry to build capacity, test digital technologies, and bring them to market, in order to improve Europe’s competitiveness in the global digital economy and increase its technological autonomy. It will also fund the establishment of Digital Innovation Hubs in Member States. The consultation is open to anyone with an interest in digital technologies and their deployment in Europe, and will ask participants to give their views on the programme’s draft ‘Orientations‘, a document that will help the Commission to develop the programme’s work plans and calls for proposals for 2021-2022.