The European digital union

This issue of Réalités Industrielles is devoted to several subjects central to European Commission’s strategy, such as the data economy, the economic and social functions of online platforms, and cybersecurity.

To build a Digital Single Market is to construct Europe’s future. Given the many crises facing Europe, it is more important than ever to project ourselves into the future and lay the foundations for a European Union where all citizens will be able to live better.

We are convinced that our future is digital, since the present is already digital. Day after day, the new technology accompanies us, as we buy, sell, study or work on line. This technology, now part of our environment, is evolving in fields ranging from health to education and culture, not to mention transportation or research and development. It does not reckon with borders.

For this reason, the European Commission has set as one of its ten policy priorities the creation of a Digital Single Market. After six months of exercising this mandate, we presented, in May 2015, an ambitious strategy with no fewer than sixteen major work areas. We stand at the midpoint, having presented half of our proposals to the members of the EU Parliament and Council of Ministers. We want to modernize existing regulations in the key areas of e-commerce, telecommunications, audiovisual media, cybersecurity and copyright law. By doing this, we want to stimulate innovation propelled, in particular, by the data economy. We are delighted to see this issue of Réalités Industrielles devoted to several subjects central to our strategy, such as the data economy, the economic and social functions of on-line platforms, and cybersecurity.

Through its articles (far from exhaustive) from persons active in this domain, this issue of Réalités Industrielles discusses some of the most important topics for conceiving of a digitized European Union.

It opens with a firsthand account from a Polish entrepreneur, Éric Salvat in data-mining, a lively field of activity in all countries, whether in the EU or not.

This article is followed by a series of viewpoints about a “digital  Europe” with focus on, respectively: the geopolitics of data; the geopolitics of European policies and the policy of constructing common interests and defending EU achievements.

Policies directly related to the Digital Single Market are then brought under discussion: competition, integration of the socially vulnerable, personal data and digital platforms, defense and security, and health. Topics related to data or platforms are, directly or indirectly, well represented herein.

Foreword by Andrus Ansip, vice-president of the European Commission in charge of a Digital Single Market and Günther Hermann Oettinger, European Commissioner on the Digital Economy and Society

Introduction by Jean-Pierre Dardayrol, engineer from École des Mines, Conseil Général de l’Économie

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