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The European Union invests through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme €11.4 million (EU contribution) in projects which seek to strengthen the European Union's capacity and deal more efficiently with cyber-threats and incidents. It is the first time that EU is providing financial support under the CEF programme to broader categories of stakeholders which nevertheless are crucial for enhanced cybersecurity at national level.

Eighty-three projects in the areas of Cyber Security, eHealth, eProcurement, Online Dispute Resolution, e-Justice and Public Open Data have been selected to receive co-funding by the European Union. The funding comes from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme in the telecommunications sector. The successful projects include participation of entities from all EU Member States and Switzerland.

A key milestone for electronic invoicing (eInvoicing) in Europe has been reached. From now on, European public administrations should be able to process eInvoices in the European Standard.

Research and education communities should take full benefit of already existing fastest data networks and trusted identity services provided by Géant.

Over the past two years, the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition has grown into a large multi-stakeholder partnership with more than 400 members and 23 National Skills Coalitions. To enable better information exchange, networking and interaction, stakeholders and National Coalitions suggested setting up a one-stop-shop for digital skills in the form of a web portal.

Since December 2018, the European Commission has been applying qualified electronic seals (e-seals) to all manually-registered documents in its ARES document management system.

To improve rural connectivity, greater collaboration is needed between rural development networks and the European Broadband Competence Offices (BCO) Network. A priority of the BCO Network is supporting rural broadband deployment, but too often, BCOs and rural broadband project promoters are unaware of one another. Choices made in the early phase of a project, however, have important consequences, such as technology choice on funding eligibility. Such advice is a core function of BCOs. BCO and project promoter partnerships are therefore key to building more successful rural broadband networks.

The 2018 Activity Report of the European Broadband Competence Offices (BCOs) Network presents the year’s knowledge-sharing and capacity-building programme under the objectives of: connecting, sharing knowledge and building capacity; growing at regional level; and strengthening the Network. The programme included events, publications and video interviews dedicated to increasing the capacity of European BCOs to bring broadband connectivity to all citizens. A focus of the BCO Network is supporting bridging the digital gap between urban and rural areas and reaching the Gigabit Society objectives.

The European Commission launched the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom 2019–1 call, making €19.2 million available to stimulate and sustain the deployment of European Digital Service Infrastructures (DSIs) in the areas of Automated Translation, eIdentification and eSignature, eDelivery, eInvoicing, Europeana and the EU Student eCard. This call is the first under the current CEF Telecom Work Programme. In 2019, CEF Telecom aims to provide up to €88 million in total funding for 18 DSIs.