EU's digital policy includes blockchain goals
As part of the 2030 digital policy program, the EU Parliament is focusing on blockchain technology alongside increasing digitization.
As part of the 2030 digital policy program, the EU Parliament is focusing on blockchain technology, in addition to rising digitalization.
With the "Policy Program for 2030: On the Way to the Digital Decade", the European Parliament (EP) aims to support businesses and public services in digitalizing their work. Existing blockchain initiatives should also receive help building blockchain-based public services. The goal is to successfully deliver Europe’s digital objectives by 2030. Blockchain is part of that.
Is competitiveness secured?
It’s clear that politics takes time. The plan for the "digital decade" has been in the works since March 2021, when the EU Parliament set its "objectives for empowering citizens and businesses through digital transformation" by the end of the decade stating it. Now the EP has in a plenary session decided to name the first implementation ideas. Dr. Stefan Berger, a member of the EU Parliament, shares his view:
“I think it’s appropriate and long overdue that the EU’s common digital political objectives are named here for the first time and that implementation strategies are listed.”
Dr. Stefan Berger
The fact that the "promotion of a European blockchain data infrastructure” is specifically included in the program is a positive signal to the industry and should "also secure the continent’s competitiveness in the future," Berger says. Whether blockchain companies share that view remains to be seen. The EU Parliament recently drew little applause with regulatory proposals like the MiCA or the controversial TFR Regulation.
Digitalization with a delay
As part of the proposals, digitalization in Europe should also be promoted. In principle, the program is meant to encourage member states to align their national roadmaps so that the corresponding investments contribute to achieving the shared digital objectives. Berger cites concrete intentions:
“These objectives include building resilient digital infrastructures, developing an ecologically sustainable European semiconductor production, digitizing government services, and achieving gender balance in the digital workforce.”
That the "digitization of government services" must be completed during the "digital decade" highlights bureaucratic readiness. Especially in Germany, government services are far from fully digital. The stark comparison: South Korea. The government there plans a blockchain-based ID system for its citizens. The digital IDs would no longer be stored as plastic cards but as an app on smartphones. Whether similar developments will take hold in Europe by 2030 is uncertain.
