Digital sovereignty decides the future

Europe continues to be fragmented into 28 submarkets and demand for IT and telecommunications across the EU is growing by just 0.1%.

"We must achieve international excellence in key digital technologies, services and platforms and at the same time be able to make self-determined and confident decisions between alternatives from trustworthy partners"

said Bitkom President Prof. Dieter Kempf.

"Politicians, but also all relevant players in business and society, must give top priority to the goal of digital sovereignty."

Countries such as the USA or China already have significantly larger, uniform domestic markets, while the corresponding investments have increased many times over. Of the hundred leading global IT and telecommunications companies, only nine are based in Europe, two of which are in Germany.

Eight measures for a digital restart

1. Germany must be the engine of a digitally sovereign EU. In regions that already have a very good basis, technological focal points should be established and developed into globally unique centers of excellence.

The standardization structures and procedures that have developed in Germany and Europe over decades should be reviewed with the aim of greatly accelerating the processes and thus being able to set authoritative global standards in new fields of technology from Germany at an early stage.

2 Germany must make Europe its home market. The fragmentation of the European market is the biggest structural disadvantage compared to the USA and China.

A genuine digital single market with uniform conditions across the EU, from data and consumer protection to taxation, would bring Europe much closer to the USA and China.

3 Germany must become a European start-up hotspot. Efficient, fast-growing and internationally oriented tech start-ups are crucial for a functioning digital ecosystem. We need to make founding, growing and internationalizing as easy as possible.

4 Germany must concentrate its research funding on digital technologies. The watering can principle, which is still too widespread in public research and business funding, should be developed into a focus principle.

In future, public funding from Germany and the EU should focus on measures that serve to gain digital sovereignty, particularly in terms of the digital transformation of Germany's and Europe's leading industries.

5 Germany must strike a balance between data diversity and data protection. A competitive data economy with its platforms and intelligent services needs an international level playing field, including through a European General Data Protection Regulation.

Data protection must enable the data economy under the same conditions for all providers and must not prevent it. Two basic principles of data protection - data minimization and purpose limitation - must be reviewed and supplemented or replaced by the principles of data diversity and data richness.

6 Germany must supplement its educational ideal with a digital educational ideal. It needs people who are able to develop the appropriate technologies and use them responsibly.

To this end, the education system must be reformed in such a way that sufficient availability of IT specialists is ensured in the long term. Computer science must be introduced as a compulsory subject from year 5 onwards.

7 Germany must provide optimum protection for its communications. Europe's economy, state and citizens must be enabled to communicate in digital networks with absolute confidentiality and protection.

To do this, they need know-how, reliable guidance and trustworthy partners.

8 Germany must build the most efficient digital infrastructures. High-performance and secure digital infrastructures and smart grids must be established as quickly as possible as part of a joint effort by industry and the state as part of Europe-wide high-performance networks.