06 February 2023

Getting Europe ready for the next generation of connectivity infrastructure | Speech by Commissioner Breton on "EU's Digital Ambitions"

In the Commission, we are working every day for each and every Member State and the European Union as a whole to be digital leaders, and to embrace the full potential of digital to modernise our Single Market.

Our ambitions are clear. Empower our citizens and businesses in a smoothly functioning Single Market without barriers, protect our democracies, and lead the technological race. By setting clear targets for 2030 to federate our efforts, and providing the necessary regulatory framework and investment conditions.

With two guiding principles:

• more self-assurance regarding our strengths: our attractiveness as the world's largest Single Market; and our ability to lead not only on research and well-established technology, but also to lead on the markets of the future;
• and more self-assurance regarding our ability to set our own rules of the game, rather than just accept the choices of others, giving us the capacity to project ourselves onto the global stage and attract foreign investment.

And I dare say that we are delivering. Let me quickly mention a few examples.

With the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act we have reorganised our digital space. The DSA will protect our citizens in the digital world against disinformation or cyberbullying of children. The DMA will ensure fair competition in the access to the digital space so that platforms cannot abuse their gatekeeper position. I am in contact with platforms so they get ready to comply. In Europe, the largest integrated digital market in the world with its 450 million population, online platforms will no longer be able to act like they are “too big to care”. 

We are rolling out an ambitious strategy to unlock the full potential of the data economy. With the Data Governance Act, already adopted, and the Data Act, in advanced negotiations, we are building a genuine Single Market for data, opening up opportunities for all economic players and making Europe a global leader in the data-agile economy.

And we aim to double our global market share to 20% by 2030 and produce the most sophisticated and energy-efficient semiconductors in Europe. With the European Chips Act, we are setting the conditions and mobilising the investment needed to ensure the EU's security of supply, resilience and technological leadership in semiconductor technologies and applications. We already see these investments materialise on the ground with many mega fab projects emerging, not to mention the ongoing IPCEI with 100 companies in 20 Member States including Finland....

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