Conference

Wednesday7 May 2014 – Athens

MORE EU DIGITAL PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO BOOST ECONOMIC GROWTH

Debriefing

The European Economic and Social Committee held a Digital Agenda - Going Local Conference entitled"More EU digital products and services to boost economic growth" in Athens on 7May, in cooperation with the Economic and Social Council of Greece.With nearly 100 participants, well-known and high-level speakers, interactive debates with the audience, and with the participation of representatives from the Greek Government, the European Commission, the Greek Council and our EESC Members, this conference was undoubtedly a huge success.

In his opening remarks,Mr Buffetaut, President of the EESC's TEN Section, stressed that digital technologies could make an important contribution towards achieving economic recovery and combat unemployment. Thanks to the Internet, there is now a new economy that has radically changed and continues to change our approach towards business. From a European perspective, the challenge is to create the right conditions that will stimulate the emergence of European Amazons, eBays and Googles, which are needed to reinvigorate the EU economy. Many studies indicate that SMEs will be the main growth force of internet-based business and e-commerce in the coming years. The challenge for the EU is to create the conditions for these SMEs to grow and compete with the big US players.

In the first panel, Ms Sioli, Head of Unit, European Commission,reminded delegates that in March 2013the Commission had launched the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs, which is a multi-stakeholder partnership among business and education providers, public and private actors to tackle the lack of digital skills in Europe and the several hundreds of thousands of unfilled ICT-related vacancies. Through the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs, more than 30000 additional ICT traineeships have been made available by European-based ICT companies in 2013, with a strong commitment to create another 100000 places by the end of 2014.

Mr Cano Aguilar, EESC Member,underlined the lack of EU digital products in the global market. With the sale of Nokia to Microsoft, Europe lacks major manufacturing companies in the area of mobile telephony. The largest high-tech companies in Europe are investing less in R&D than are their Asian and American counterparts. After that, she expressed her concern that only 30% of people working in ICT are women, whilst the inclusion of more women in the ICT sector could lead to an increase in GDP. A change of policy is particularly necessary because of an alarming decline in the number of graduates in ICT.

In the second panel Mr Arvanitozisis,a member of the Economic and Social Council of Greece, underlined that ICTs were the most important area of corporate research and development (R&D) investment. As Neelie Kroes, Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, said: if it is to achieve the goal of investing 3% of GDP in R&D, Europe will need to double public investment in ICT by 2020. Greece is one of the EU Member States which is lagging furthest behind in terms of ICT development, resulting in a widening gap with the rest of Europe in this sector, reduced competitiveness and lower productivity. Greece earmarks only 0.48% of GDP for research and technology, whereas the EU average is 1.9%.He also added that, however, when we speak of the need to develop new digital goods and services, we must never lose sight of how the general public relates to the new technologies, since they are the ones who are supposed to benefit from the new goods and services. In order to benefit, people must have the necessary digital skills.

Mr Galouzidis, President of the "i-learn" company,Athens, pointed out that, at the beginning of the 21st century, we are entering an era where, in addition to the traditional foundations of economic strength (capital, land, raw materials and technology), there are also other factors that determine the success of a business or organisation, i.e. their ability to harness their corporate knowledge. Corporate knowledge is embedded both in the skills of a company's staff and in the systems that it uses (manual as well as IT), networks (informal or formal) between staff, and business processes. Information and communication technologies are increasingly integral to the effective development and maintenance of corporate knowledge. Corporate knowledge is the sum total of the knowledge of every member of a business; it is this which ultimately gives that business a competitive advantage. Essentially, corporate knowledge is the collective intelligence of a company, comprising its knowledge, training, intuition, intellectual property, experience, information, collective learning, cooperation, customers and suppliers.It can be enhanced by ICT and, in turn, boost competitiveness, growth and employment.

In the closing session, Ms Laure Batut,President of Permanent Study Group on the Digital Agenda, EESC, expressed her idea that ICTs were not an end in themselves, but a means to allow citizens to take action and to make democracy come alive: let a whole generation become "coders" from school age and learn the technical side of ICT.

Based on a broad analysis including that set out above, the two main conclusions from the event are as follows:

  • The European Union needs to develop a much more powerful and creative ICT industry.

Regarding innovative projects to re-launch the market, given the large investments required, the Commission could consider promoting, inter alia, cooperation between business and government. It could take the form of joint ventures: businesses, the Commission and the Member States provide contributions to a common fund for research. This form of cooperation already exists for the rail industry, with a planned investment of 900 million euros. A similar idea could be applied to the digital agenda sector, as this is an area in which small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups can play a role. Incentives for these initiatives require traditional financial support, such as bank loans, and also other non-traditional means, such as crowdfunding, which is still underdeveloped in Europe.

  • A new form of ICT learning, which offers up-to-date information and knowledge and which is accessible to all on a life-long basis, is vital.

At present many European citizens and firms do not have a sufficient command of ICT, with the result that it is becoming increasingly difficult to fill digital jobs. The education currently on offer is not generally in tune with the new requirements that are being generated on a daily basis. Since a recent study reveals that one of the main reasons for workers dropping out of lifelong learning is lack of time, the key to addressing worker participation in training programmes seems to be to apply ICT and new technologies, using specialised methodological e-learning tools. Moreover, the real digital upturn in the EU will only happen if qualifications and skills will allow a vast number of Europeans to become inventors and creators of digital content, products and services, rather than remaining only users of ICT. This means that EU level strategies need to be found that effectively help Member States to get a whole generation to learn the technical side of ICT, from primary school until the end of tertiary education.

The EESC will take up these two challenges in its future work, alone or in cooperation with other organisations, in order to stimulate tangible and measurable progress in both EU ICT corporate development and ICT learning.

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EESC-2014-03369-00-00-TCD-TRA (EN) 1/3