As of the 1st of July, the EU Digital COVID Certificate Regulation entered into application. This means that EU citizens and residents will now be able to have their Digital COVID Certificates issued and verified across the EU.

The Commission published the reports by Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Microsoft and Google on measures taken in May against coronavirus disinformation as signatories of the Code of Practice on Disinformation.

The Commission published the results of the Special Eurobarometer survey on E-communications, showing recent trends in electronic communications across the EU.

The regulation establishing a new Cybersecurity Competence Centre and a Network of National Coordination Centres has entered into force this week. The Cybersecurity Competence Centre, which will be located in Bucharest, will contribute to strengthening European cybersecurity capacities and to boosting research excellence and the competitiveness of the Union's industry in the cybersecurity field.

On 28 June the 100th disinfection robot was delivered, part of the Commission's action to supply these to hospitals across the EU to help them cope with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Emergency Clinical Hospital Bagdasar-Arseni in Bucharest is receiving the robot today and six other hospitals in Romania are set to have one delivered in the coming days, thus benefitting from these robots' ability to disinfect a standard size patient room in as quickly as 15 minutes by using ultraviolet light.

To boost research and innovation investments in digital, the Commission has launched new European Partnerships together with industry and academia, under the Horizon Europe programme.
The Partnerships will pursue innovative solutions on a large scale, pooling in efforts, resources and investments which will generate long-term positive impact, boost European competitiveness and technological sovereignty, as well as create jobs and growth.

The Commission has laid out a vision to build a new Joint Cyber Unit to tackle the rising number of serious cyber incidents impacting public services, as well as the life of businesses and citizens across the European Union. Advanced and coordinated responses in the field of cybersecurity have become increasingly necessary, as cyberattacks grow in number, scale and consequences, impacting heavily our security. All relevant actors in the EU need to be prepared to respond collectively and exchange relevant information on a ‘need to share', rather than only ‘need to know', basis.

This week the European Commission published a new report that takes stock of national strategies on Artificial Intelligence and provides suggestions for future developments.

The Commission has released the European Innovation Scoreboard 2021, which shows that Europe's innovation performance continues to improve across the EU. On average, innovation performance has increased by 12.5% since 2014. There is continued convergence within the EU, with lower performing countries growing faster than higher performing ones, therefore closing the innovation gap among them.

Today, the Commission adopted a Decision harmonising the use of the 6 GHz band for wireless networks across the EU, which will support a growing number of devices, online applications and innovative services that require larger bandwidth and faster speeds. Thanks to this, citizens and businesses will be able to enjoy better, faster and more stable Wi-Fi connections across the EU, including for video conferencing, streaming and sharing content, telemedicine or when using augmented reality technologies.