Introduction:

Europe is a large continent and when you look at Europe digital market, the market is the wealthiest of the world. Always looking at the perspective that the responsibility and collective effort in the world, would have solved every problem. Which is of course a way that even in this dystopian present we should not abandon at all. Openness is the key for a wealthy and well-functioning society, and we will be defending openness of markets and technologies services, even if we speak about gaining a little bit more of empowerment for our citizens in our society in terms of having more resilience. When it comes to supplying services and goods to our citizens, so this is the type of reflection where you need to keep the balance right between openness and the need to have a society which is empowered.

The other element is the responsibility that is on Europe to be one of the major contributors of the wealth and the well-being of our society in the world not just in Europe. First of all, when it comes to the basic research and the basic development, we need to continue to contribute to breakthrough innovation. Breakthrough innovation does not come from private companies but it’s an ecosystem of innovation that you need and that’s one of the big failures of this crisis. We have discovered that a private research without a strong underpinning from the public side it’s not enough. We thought that we had all sorts of AI solutions, we discovered that the AI is useful, it actually we deployed it in hospitals but as far from being the game changer that we thought. I’m sure a few years from now it will be the game changer but I’m equally sure that AI medicine, AI in public services, AI in terms of safety of our transport system this is something which is a responsibility of our society to invest on. We cannot just rely on private companies to do that because that’s not the job why the job of the private sector is for sure to exploit this and to go on and propose more and better innovative products. The other element where we have a responsibility it’s the rule, making now some outside the Europe speak about the Brussels effect, which in other words is what we managed to do in terms of the digital rules of the governor society and economy, when it comes for instance from things like privacy with the GDPR. The fair use of the internet with the net neutrality law which exists in Europe doesn’t exist in many other parts of the world. The respect and protection of fundamental rights in general, this element which is again letting market forces to offer services but having a public governance oversight on the fundamental rights of citizens, this you can call it the Brussels model.

And it remains the model of reference in the world and that’s the spirit in which we are present the two twin regulations, the digital service act and the digital market act. The first being our services are being offered to citizens and the second is what is the relationship between those service providers platforms and the rest of the business which are using those platforms to actually do business. So, these are complementary goals, the digital services and digital market act go in the same direction, the digital economy will transform our economy and become our new normal. The constitutional guarantees in the real world should be constitutional guarantees in the digital world, that means constitutional guarantees should be enforceable also in the digital world and what is illegal in the real world is illegal in the digital world, that’s the essence of these two acts. Find the part of the new normal a society which after this pandemic will rely heavily on digital systems in order to live better to be more resilient and also to work and live in a way that is more near to what are our aspiration.

The last point in regulation is the data governance act that also we present at the end of last year, which is about data sharing. Data sharing has been a bit the quick spot of this pandemic from the very beginning in terms of first of all having the right data of what was going on. Imagine we would have known much more in advance what was going really on in china, imagine we would have been sharing much more information in the various areas of the world. Quicker we are trying to share as quickly as we can information for instance on the variation of the various, on the mutation. Data repositories genetic databases where all these it’s available are in the making but they are halfway and that’s not just pandemic, this is about our society. Imagine sharing data (much more data) about how we move and how we use transport to make our transfer system safer and greener, much more data about the consumption of electricity at our homes to save money, but also to have a better planet. All of this means that the data allows the society to be better to be more resilient. So the data governance act it’s about this, it’s about governments sharing more data with companies, it’s about a company sharing data among ourselves without having one company conflict of interest with others, it’s about citizens if they want to donate data to research to improve our society. We hope to contribute not only to a better society and economy in Europe but a better economy society in the world it’s through digital technologies we hope that our society will be better.

we have learned during this crisis and what we have gained of the crisis so

more digital savings more freedom to organize our work will become the norm but in order to do that we need the investments!  Just not talks like this are enough and that’s why the recovery of Europe has been not just a talk show but has been a very serious decision taken by state government last July, lined up 2.4 trillion euros for the recovery of Europe and as you know legally 20 percent of the recovery plan should go in the direction of improving our digital society and economy.

I’m not sure I can give a precise meaning to the world sovereignty and I would discard all the bad feelings that people would have about sovereignty. Somebody imposing something on somebody else, if the meaning is digital empowerment that starts with the research and development, starts with investment infrastructure and looks at using blockchain digital identity using new technologies such as quantum or AI supercomputing to improve our society well I can live with this and I’m happy to say this is it I mean, but if it is about closing borders to cooperation creating, a kind of iron ivory castle well that’s not what we have in mind. When it comes to the rules once again if sovereignty means empowerment that’s what we have in mind, the empowerment of the citizens of companies of having a real society of equals as much as possible. Of course, the society is difficult to equalize, everything it’s almost utopian but you can make sure through public intervention the distances are less and if this is the meaning, then this is all about the 3ds the digital service act the digital market act and the digital governance act. The effort is to have a society which is more resilient, a society which is open and to take up our responsibility as public powers to do what public power should do in terms of research development and our responsibility in the world.

JGDE: how Europe plan does to balance the promotion of greater data sharing with the data protection and privacy standards?

Roberto Viola (RV): as an individual through me sensors and my movement I generate data. I think I have the right to decide whether I want to give this data for a better society or I want or not have services dedicated with this data. So this empowerment is the fundamental element of the GDPR and if exercise correctly in a way that citizens understand what they are doing,

not as a kind of bureaucratic reflex, the citizens can be the center of a data saving society and this is one of the pillars of the data governance act. The data donation, it’s a concept that is absolutely allowed by the GDPR. Not very clear how to exercise it, it’s a bit like when you want to donate your money.  There are public schemes to guarantee that the people that are offering you to donate the data for a course they are not actually offering a scam, but a real donation scheme for a real purpose. Here the data governance act is a bit the same, give confidence to the citizens that those data organizations the donation organization are serious so by exercising their rights of privacy and the rights of ownership the data generated that by themselves in and then moving into organizations that can actually allow citizens to donate the data. Go one step further in the debate, the same applies to things which are not personal data but they maybe they belong to a an entity being a private entity a citizen like an object in the house, a connected option to a company. What could be the reflex to generate the virtual circle by which data is put in common and everybody put in the data in common gets the benefit out of it? For us the key of this is about avoiding conflict of interest, i.e. to prevent one of the participants from misusing the data of others for their own purposes. That’s why we are pushing the data for neutral programming of course it’s not an obligation if you like conflict of interest in and you are happy with this fine.

For Europe, the key to resolve this tension or this equilibrium between privacy protection, intellectual property and sharing, is the data governance factor, i.e.  empowering companies and citizens to make their choice and to find organizations that could actually make sure that they can exercise those choice

JGDE: Have the EU Member States agreed on a common position and approach to digital sovereignty or will each country have to develop its own strategic approach to protect citizens?

RV: there’s a desire that the digital future Europe it’s a common future and the indicator of this is the common will of heads of state of government to place digital at the center of the recovery efforts for Europe. The second indicator is the request last October from the European Commission asking the relevant bodies to work for March on what will be developed for our digital in the next 10 years. We gave our thoughts so that state governments would consider our suggestions as an aid to understanding that digital knows no borders.

Digital requires massive investment to be transformative, some of the investments are local. But the major effort, when it comes to infrastructure of force, I mean blockchain, AI quantum, those kind of effort not even the largest countries in terms of GDP can afford it in Europe it’s only by working together that we can really make the difference. So I think again if the earning of share sovereignty’s responsibility share the empowerment in in the common construction of a European future.  I would say the there’s a common understanding of where we have to go. But it’s also clear that this doesn’t mean that member states can forgive the homework to do when for instance you look at the digital administration in our recovery plan, we insist the digital administration, it’s linked with reforms. It makes little sense to digitize bureaucracy, it makes a lot of sense to simplify processes to have as you were saying “Kitchen table democracy” so that is available to everyone services the government as a service and then of course use the best of digital technologies to do that. But if you take a bureaucratic process and your intention is to keep it to preserve it forever and to digitize it then of course we will really miss the mark of having a more resilient and more future proof society.

JGDE: Can we work more closely with the new administration in the US to facilitate better regulation of digital platforms?

 RV: Definitely this is the intention of the European commission. We have published a policy document as we call it, a communication where we said exactly this in our policy communication that : our wish, and our president repeated this last week in parliament, is to be digitally engaged with the new administration.

We made a quite a concrete proposal to create a high-level traded technology panel to discuss the interlinkage between tradition regulation digital technologies and to have a fully-fledged agenda for cooperation. When it comes to the digital rules, we are more than happy to actually contribute together with the new administration united states, as I said, that with world order where rule or law citizens it’s the norm.

JGDE: EU member states recently agreed a joint statement on a European cloud federation can you give a sense of the role and importance that a European crowd federation guy may are expected to play in the use of data in Europe?

RV: he goal as I was saying in my introductory remarks is to have a data saving society and of course the data have to be somewhere. So what we think, the way data organized, there should be some regulation, this but also there should be sound technology. When looking at the future of data processing and storage we see that the world becomes much more distributed than this today, we will move to a more distributed collective brain and to large data centers and data processing facility.  If you like this vision technology vision translates in blending high performance computing and what are called edge computing distributed and centralized cloud systems. We want to give our technical technological contribution and also a greener way of processing storing data. New technologies should allow to process and store the data closer to the users, that’s the other important thing. No single vendor should have the monopoly of data storage or data processing. Companies, banks, corporations, citizens, small enterprises should have the freedom of choice should have the possibility to port their data and their service to another cloud provider if they wish so, that’s the sense of the cloud alliance with the member states I mean to do to realize a distributed cloud federated cloud system open and possible also. That’s also a very important technological objective green.

JGDE: how we can get shared technology solutions without shared positions on the meaning of data sovereignty at both state and individual level?

JGDE: how can Europe convey to the rest of the world that it is still open for business while stepping up in its global leadership of digital?

RV: I think there’s no continent more open than Europe. Frankly, when you look around, it’s clearly like this and so that’s why I mean sometimes reports confuses the reality. I mean we have been the one in offering openness when it comes to data exchanges; we have been the one championing trade agreements with the free flow data; we have a very solid regulation inside the union for free flow of data.  being open doesn’t mean to be naïve and it takes in a trade agreement or two to tango, so if the other party It’s interested to get your data but doesn’t offer the same level of exchange or doesn’t offer as it in some jurisdiction any kind of guarantees in terms of protecting the intellectual property right of companies in terms of cyber security then of course you have to be a bit careful. I mean I’m sure we are all very open in our thinking with respect to our friends and families and people we now, but I don’t give the keys of my house to everybody in a light-hearted matter and here is a bit the same. I think the keys of the house we can share with many, and we are doing that and we probably championed it, but it’s time we say to certain jurisdictions you behave that’s the point you behave. Because I mean there are red lines that cannot be trespassed, the red line about respecting the fundamental rights, the red line about not attacking with cyber-attacks, the red line of enforcing the protection of fundamental basis. At the same time I mean when you discuss internationally there are principles but there is also the willingness to move ahead, even in problematic jurisdiction, we are willing to see how we can move ahead and how we can I mean make sure that there’s more openness on both sides so the intention is absolutely to maintain an open entire dialogue and sharing data as much as we can. But of course, in doing so we have to be also a little bit savy that we don’t give the keys of our house to everybody that maybe some of this everybody is not to be trusted.

JGDE: moving to artificial intelligence following the EU’s white paper on AI last year new, EU ai regulations are anticipated this year. Are you able to give any sense on what themes are emerging as the most important in Regulation in AI from these consultations?

RV: the eyes we see AI are a little bit different before the pandemic. That if you remember the debate before the pandemic was AI’s here everywhere and now we need to regulate it. I would say after the pandemic, we should probably say AI is not here, if AI would have been here could have been a welcome supplementary help to find a solution to the pandemic. The effort still gigantic to bring us to a society that can actually benefit from it and we should not deflect from this effort. In the meantime, there are emerging applications the more and more rely on AI. I come to also the feedback we got from the whiteboard consultation. We should not when it comes to regulation, shoot in every direction, just the fact that you say I should not be making something eligible for regulation.

However, I think we still start maturing things that we collectively think it cannot be. I’m also referring to some tragic events happened in the last few days, that adolescents through AI aggregate have flooded social media fake information, it cannot be; If you don’t warn people that you use face recognition in an indiscriminate way without any link to for instance a security need, it cannot be. So there are certain cannot be and there are certain you should be cautious.

Out of the consultation we have seen three things :  the things where you have to give a bit of a warning, the things what we call a bit risk applications – the heads to state, the government ask the commission to be a bit clearer what are the risks; a car it’s a high-risk machine that’s why you have standards and you have tests, so the fact that something is high risk doesn’t mean that they should not be marketed, simply means attention – and the third element is the things that are not a risk, not forbidden and they should simply be allowed and in this case  why there should be regulation. So I think what is very clear from what the states told us and what is emerging from the debate, here’s a clear distinction between things that are okay things where we should be attentive and that’s a bit the philosophy according to what the European council has asked us. Which we are looking to a limited set of rules that could be really useful in framing the future of AI in the direction to have much more AI in our society and much more people the trust AI.

JGDE: what the future between the EU and the UK in terms of cooperation in The digital espace?

RV: RV: The future is in the agreement and part of it is to be defined. I think the first answer is that there is a difference between being part of the digital single market and being out of it. We have not determined that future, it has been determined by the choice of the British people and we have to respect that.

But at the same time, we have to make one thing very clear – the digital future is with a Member State of the Union, or with a state that is sustainable for the Union. So there will be a difference between being a partner of the Union and being an external state, it doesn’t mean that the certain degree of cooperation is possible, it’s what the agreement represents in terms of changing data, in terms of selecting certain areas in which joint research can be undertaken, in terms of general regulatory cooperation and also certain forms of, let’s say, security cooperation.

All of that needs to be further detailed in the coming weeks and months but the intention is of course to maintain a good relationship, but it will be a very different relationship

Conclusion :

I think the world needs Europe and we need the world there’s no doubt.

And in digital Europe’s role responsibility that we have to exercise in driving the new normal to a better dimension for citizens.

We are the largest market of digital market of the world, we are by tradition, by facts the market where are the most advanced rules.

We have indeed a weakness, when it comes to having neglected too much in the past the power on innovation, when it comes to digital and this weakness that we need to catch up. That’s why these investments in the recovery plan in advance of digital technologies are extremely welcome.

Catch up in a race, there’s no reason why you should shoot the tires of the opponent, I mean that’s not the way to win the race, and so this is the race, eventually, the real price is to have a real new normal where something what happened will never happen again. Unfortunately, probably it will happen again but at least we will have the tools to combat it better. This is the cup for winning these trades and this is a cup we can share this world cup with others, I mean but we have to do our job in Europe. We are too big, too important not to do our own work and what went wrong is that we didn’t do our homework and we cannot simply blame others if they have done the work.

And now they are also in services and process in Europe, we have to do our work and we can maintain all our reflex to be open and assertive by doing our work