€315bn EU Investment Plan must involve local governments to bridge Europe's digital divide
The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) has called on the EU to give a greater focus of its recently launched Investment Plan to the digital economy. Speaking in Riga, the CoRs' President, Markku Markkula, welcomed the shift towards a more digitalised economy but raised concerns that Europe was facing a "digital divide". The EU's new Investment Plan must better target more isolated regions, give a greater say to local and regional authorities and focus on increasing their innovation capacity to allow them to "compete with the best innovation hubs in the world".
In 2010 the EU launched its Digital Agenda as a means to modernise Europe's ICT sector which, it has been suggested, has the potential to grow Europe's GDP by 4% by 2020 and could help cut public administrative costs by 15-20%. The European Commission's President, Jean-Claude Juncker i, has continued to stress the importance of creating a connected digital market which - he argued - could generate up to €250 billion. Europe has made strides: in 2013 76% of all households in the EU had a broadband connection compared to 67% in 2011.
At the conference in Riga - organised by the CoR and supported by the Latvian EU Presidency and the Latvian Association of Local and Regional Governments - President Markkula warned that the digital divide in Europe persists which was exasperating regional disparity, "Completing Europe's Digital Single Market is a priority. It is a basic tool needed by every sector to spur innovation, create jobs and boost growth. But the market can't go it alone and we must be wary that a digitally divided Europe will create an economically divided Europe. We need to make sensible and effective investment decisions that reach all Europe's regions. Based on the recent action plan with the European Investment Bank, the CoR is supporting the digital revolution which has partly been the result of small-scale, bottom-up initiatives: local and regional authorities play a key role in helping citizens and businesses connect where the market fail".
The Chairman of the Latvian Association of Local and Regional Governments and Head of the Latvian Delegation to the CoR, Andris Jaunsleinis emphasised that we should no longer consider the ICT sector as a separate sphere disconnected from the everyday life of local and regional governments. “It is important to also understand that available digital technologies are a precondition for citizens to choose to live not only in cities, but also rural areas he said.
According to Zoran Stanā iā , Deputy Director-General at the European Commission who also took part in the debate, regions and cities are natural partners in the EU Investment Plan which combines private and EU funds to the tune of €315 billion. President Markkula added that it must complement and not undermine EU regional funding and be effectively targeted to avoid leaving certain regions and cities behind.