{"id":2042,"date":"2026-10-06T10:53:45","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T10:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/?p=2042"},"modified":"2026-10-06T10:53:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T10:53:45","slug":"there-must-not-be-two-digital-europes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/there-must-not-be-two-digital-europes\/","title":{"rendered":"There must not be two digital Europes"},"content":{"rendered":"

I came to Galway because Europe\u2019s digital future must not be shaped without the regions that will have to deliver it. At today\u2019s meeting of the Commission for Economic Policy of the European Committee of the Regions, we discussed the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act. There is no final position yet. This is precisely the stage when local and regional experience can still improve the European framework.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Europe needs more computing capacity, stronger European providers, secure data, sustainable infrastructure and wider adoption of artificial intelligence. These are essential goals for competitiveness, resilience and strategic autonomy. Yet capacity alone is not success. Europe must also ask where the infrastructure is built, who can afford the services, whether smaller authorities can use them, and whether every region receives a fair opportunity to benefit.<\/p>\n

The risk of a new divide<\/h2>\n

Cloud and artificial intelligence services are becoming essential infrastructure for public administration, health, education, transport and business. A service can be affordable when it is first introduced. Once an authority, hospital, school or company depends on it, switching can become difficult and expensive. If prices rise, wealthy regions may absorb the additional cost. Less developed, rural, mountain and peripheral regions may fall further behind.<\/p>\n

This would not remain a digital gap. It would become a gap in public services, productivity, investment, jobs and territorial attractiveness. Strong regions could modernise more quickly and attract more talent. Weaker regions could lose more young people and face deeper demographic decline. Internal migration would increase, while the European promise of equal opportunity would become less credible.<\/p>\n

Where opportunities and services deteriorate, trust can weaken. Disinformation, foreign information manipulation and political radicalisation can find more fertile ground. Digital cohesion is therefore not a secondary social concern. It is part of Europe\u2019s democratic resilience, economic security and long term stability. The consequences of territorial exclusion eventually reach every region, including the strongest ones.<\/p>\n

The safeguards I proposed<\/h2>\n

In the debate and the political and professional discussions that preceded it, I called for a territorial affordability test. Europe should monitor not only installed capacity but also real regional access and total cost. This must include service charges, staff training, data migration, security, integration and the practical cost of changing providers.<\/p>\n

An identified territorial shortage should lead to action. Underserved areas need accessible finance, suitable infrastructure, technical assistance and a realistic convergence path. Monitoring without a response would merely describe inequality after it has already become entrenched.<\/p>\n

Smaller local and regional authorities need shared expertise, model contracts, joint procurement options and proportionate requirements. A small municipality cannot maintain the same legal, procurement, cybersecurity and technology capacity as a wealthy metropolitan authority. Formal eligibility is not equal access if an authority cannot prepare the application or manage the contract.<\/p>\n

Open standards, data portability and tested exit routes are essential. Digital sovereignty must mean practical control over data, continuity and costs. It must not be reduced to a label, nor should Europe replace one dependency with another. Public buyers must be able to change providers without putting essential services at risk.<\/p>\n

Local and regional authorities must be partners in design, risk assessment, procurement and evaluation. They know which public service would fail first during an outage. They understand local grid capacity, water constraints, land use, community acceptance and the needs of smaller businesses. European leadership will be stronger when it uses this knowledge from the beginning.<\/p>\n

Europe also needs a resilient and geographically balanced infrastructure model. Large computing hubs are necessary, but they should be complemented by smaller regional capacity for daily public services. A distributed network can improve continuity and bring investment and skills closer to communities, provided environmental limits and local public value are respected.<\/p>\n

A stronger Union through cohesion<\/h2>\n

The Cloud and AI Development Act can help Europe connect research, investment, public procurement and practical deployment. European cooperation can create scale that individual municipalities, regions and even Member States cannot achieve alone. Joint procurement, shared public sector capacity, common standards and coordinated investment can lower costs and strengthen European providers.<\/p>\n

This European dimension deserves strong support. It can reduce fragmentation, improve security and give public authorities credible alternatives. But common European action must not lead to territorial concentration. Funding and technical support should reach the places where market forces alone are unlikely to deliver sufficient capacity, skills or services.<\/p>\n

There must not be one digital future for Europe\u2019s strongest metropolitan areas and another for its rural, mountain, peripheral and less developed territories. This is not an argument against successful regions. They also benefit from a Union with less forced migration, stronger local economies, greater trust and more resilient public services across the continent.<\/p>\n

Eastern and western Europe need each other in this transition. The strongest regions can contribute experience, capital and technological capacity. Regions that are still catching up can contribute talent, local innovation, industrial opportunities and new partnerships. European added value comes from connecting these strengths, not from allowing them to drift further apart.<\/p>\n

Why regional presence matters<\/h2>\n

European decisions begin long before the final vote. They are shaped through working documents, amendments, discussions with rapporteurs, political consultations and alliances among regions. By the time a final text reaches the public, many key choices have already been framed. The Committee of the Regions has a responsibility to identify territorial consequences that may not be visible from a national or sectoral perspective.<\/p>\n

Political work must also look beyond one mandate. Our responsibility is to leave future representatives a foundation of trust, cooperation and credible proposals. An idea raised today may gain momentum in five, ten or fifteen years. Its value does not depend on who is in office when it is finally implemented.<\/p>\n

I therefore asked the rapporteur to examine the proposal with particular care for territorial affordability, administrative capacity, regional access and service continuity. Europe needs leadership in cloud and artificial intelligence. It also needs fairness in how that leadership is built and shared.<\/p>\n

The objective is not to slow Europe down. It is to ensure that Europe advances together. A competitive Union and a cohesive Union are not opposing ambitions. In the digital age, each depends on the other.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I came to Galway because Europe\u2019s digital future must not be shaped without the regions that will have to deliver it. At today\u2019s meeting of the Commission for Economic Policy of the European Committee of the Regions, we discussed the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act. There is no final position yet. This is precisely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,1,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cor","category-hirek","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2044,"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042\/revisions\/2044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}