The digital future of Europe

It applies to companies with more than 3,000 employees, and from 2024 also to those with more than 1,000. There is also already a corresponding directive proposal at EU level, which, analogous to the LkSG, obliges larger companies and their suppliers to comply with environmental protection and human rights standards across the entire value chain.

Digital transformation

Laws like these are driving the digital transformation in companies in all industries, as the seamless verification requirement and the extensive documentation that goes with it demand permanent traceability and more flexibility in supply chain management.

A trustworthy, secure and transparent data infrastructure at European level is also needed for exchanging with partners and processing information along the supply chains.

Decentralized data infrastructure

Europe intends to increase its competitiveness in the technology sector through cooperation in the digital single market. The aim is to network existing centralized and decentralized data infrastructures into a homogeneous, transparent system - a "European platform with software infrastructure" - at maximum data protection and security levels. To this end, common standards, software and an organizational framework must be developed. Open technologies represent the secure exchange of data, applications and know-how as well as the use of services.

In the future, this will result in new opportunities for both cloud service providers (CSPs) and users to create innovative business models and products and to strengthen their competitive position internationally.

The Gaia-X Foundation, founded in June 2020, is dedicated to the aforementioned goal. Partners from more than 300 companies and organizations from various European countries, including Fabasoft and SAP, are working together to develop a powerful platform that already maps data and software across its architecture - without systemic disruption.

Certified data security

When using IT services, especially cloud services, compliance and legal certainty in data protection are of great importance to users. Various certifications such as the Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalogue (C5) or the ISO certifications 27001 and 27018 demonstrate compliance with regard to DSGVO and IT security and create trust between business partners.

In addition, the EU Cloud Code of Conduct (CoC) is the only comprehensive code of conduct to date initiated by the EU Commission itself for the technical and organizational implementation of exemplary European data protection standards. Fabasoft was the first company worldwide to achieve the third and thus highest compliance level (Level 3) of the EU Cloud CoC.

Conclusion

Developing competitive approaches for simple and transparent data exchange while maintaining the highest security standards is an essential step on the road to digital sovereignty.