News & Views

On 25 March 2021, the Member States, in close cooperation with the Commission, agreed on a Union-wide Connectivity Toolbox, pursuant to the Connectivity Recommendation of 18 September 2020. The Toolbox consists of a set of best practices that are considered as the most efficient in allowing and encouraging operators to roll out very high capacity networks.

The European Commission launched a dialogue on the protection of journalists in the EU with a wide range of stakeholders, including journalists and their associations, news media companies, representatives of media councils, European Parliament, Member States and regulatory authorities as well as international partners.

The Institute for Business Competitiveness and the Spanish national cybersecurity competence center (INCIBE) invite interested bidders to submit offers for their first pre-commercial procurement in the cybersecurity field. The aim is to develop tools that can discover and eliminate websites or domains where hidden illegal activities happen, not only on the regular Internet but also on the Deep Web. The procurement receives funding from the European Union's European Regional Development Fund. Check out the video presentation of the tender scope. Deadline for submission of offers: 14 May 2021

The Greek National Training School for Public Administration (EKDDA) started regular 3-day training courses on innovation procurement for civil servants in Greece. The certified training program is organized in cooperation with the Greek national competence center on innovation procurement. This certification can trigger more innovation procurement by linking the training to promotion opportunities. Topics covered range from preparation to implementation and monitoring of innovation procurement, joint procurement, case examples, European funding. Next training is planned for 11-13/5/2021.

Since 2011, the Norwegian oil and gas operators Equinor and Gassnova successfully completed two consecutive pre-commercial procurements that developed and tested cost effective solutions for full-scale carbon capture, transport and storage. This is a cornerstone in the EU's climate strategy to reduce CO2 emissions of the energy intensive industries and reach climate neutrality by 2050. Recently the Norwegian government and the EFTA surveillance authority approved 2,5Bn EURO budget for full-scale roll out of the solution, which by 2050 could capture 14% of the CO2 emitted across the entire EU.

Today, at the online Digital Day 2021, Ministers representing EU Member States signed three Declarations to pool efforts and resources to promote international connectivity, incentivise the rollout of clean digital technologies and improve the regulatory environment for start-ups and scale-ups. These tangible commitments will help accelerate Europe’s green and digital transformation and will contribute to the vision and goals of Europe's Digital Decade.

Today at the EU Digital Day 24 EU Member States and Iceland signed the declaration on Startups Nations Standard of Excellence, to support startups across Europe in each stage of their development.

26 CEOs of companies have signed a Declaration to support the Green and Digital Transformation of the EU.

24 Member States and Norway and Iceland have signed a declaration to accelerate the use of green digital technologies for the benefit of the environment. They will deploy and invest more green digital technologies to achieve climate neutrality and accelerate the green and digital transitions in priority sectors in Europe, for example by using the NextGenerationEU and InvestEU funds.

At Digital Day 2021, 25 Member States, as well as Iceland and Norway, committed to reinforcing internet connectivity between Europe and its partners in Africa, Asia, the European neighbourhood, the Western Balkans and Latin America, by signing the Declaration on “European Data Gateways as a key element of the EU’s Digital Decade”.