On 4 December, ECIS held its annual event and decided to hold not one, but two high-level conversations on Europe’s digital future and on ICT standardisation

In the morning, we had an engaging breakfast discussion at the European Parliament with Michael McNamara MEP. As the Cloud and AI Development Act is approaching and digital sovereignty is becoming the EU’s key priority for the coming years, we co-organised this open discussion between policymakers and industry representatives for valuable conversations around Europe’s digital future.

Some key takeaways:

Digital sovereignty is no longer a concept – it is a clear objective already being implemented by parts of the industry and reinforced by clear political signals from the EU policymakers.

The Cloud and AI Development Act will be the next major initiatived on digital sovereignty, but it will not be a standalone solution. Effective enforcement of existing regulations will be just as important.

EU investment frameworks must enable European companies to scale globally, and European competitiveness must be achieved beyond the EU market.

Later that day, we had a lunch meeting with Emilio Davila Gonzalez (DG CNECT) to discuss the ongoing standardisation work. The discussions highlighted the growing gap between fast innovation cycles and long standardisation timelines, particularly in light of the delays in drafting the expected AI Act standards. The necessity to include risk management when building standards was also emphasized.