Europe\u2019s cloud and AI ambitions will represent genuine progress only if every region can benefit. Csaba Borboly made this point during the meeting of the European Committee of the Regions ECON Commission in Galway on 6 October 2026, where members discussed rapporteur Ren\u00e9 Jansen\u2019s preliminary working document.<\/p>\n
The European Commission representative presented the proposal as a response to two main challenges. Europe needs more data processing capacity and must reduce its excessive dependence on providers from outside Europe. The proposal includes adoption support centres, joint procurement, capacity sharing among public bodies and cooperation on open source solutions.<\/p>\n
Borboly supported stronger European digital sovereignty but warned that additional infrastructure would not automatically deliver fair access. Europe must also examine whether a small municipality, a rural school, a hospital or a local business can afford and safely use these services.<\/p>\n
The Commission\u2019s impact assessment recognises that compliance, auditing, infrastructure and labour costs associated with sovereign services may be passed on to users through higher prices. At the same time, it expects savings from joint procurement and capacity sharing. The actual result may therefore vary significantly between territories.<\/p>\n
Borboly called for a territorial affordability test covering total service costs, the practical and financial burden of switching providers, and the technical and administrative capacity of local and regional authorities.<\/p>\n
He also argued that the identification of a persistently underserved region should trigger concrete action. Smaller authorities need accessible funding, shared expertise, training, model contracts and joint procurement arrangements that they can use in practice.<\/p>\n
In his response, rapporteur Ren\u00e9 Jansen stressed that technological development must serve people and communities. He also underlined that security related provider switching must be workable and must not impose disproportionate administrative or technical burdens on local and regional authorities.<\/p>\n
The rapporteur further called for an assessment of the regional added value of data centres, including their contribution to energy systems, employment, innovation and the wider local economy. His response creates a constructive basis for further work, but it does not yet amount to acceptance of Borboly\u2019s specific proposals.<\/p>\n
The next formal stakeholder consultation will take place on 20 October 2026. Written contributions may be submitted to the ECON Secretariat by 16 October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Europe\u2019s cloud and AI ambitions will represent genuine progress only if every region can benefit. Csaba Borboly made this point during the meeting of the European Committee of the Regions ECON Commission in Galway on 6 October 2026, where members discussed rapporteur Ren\u00e9 Jansen\u2019s preliminary working document. The European Commission representative presented the proposal as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,1,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2045","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\/2045","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=2045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2049,"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045\/revisions\/2049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cor.borbolycsaba.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}