CoR: European regions can bring EU policy closer citizens' needs in digitalisation, skills, innovation
The remits of the SEDEC Commission of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) span from culture, employment, skills and social aspects to research, innovation support and technology regulation.
Expressing the views of local and regional authorities on EU policy proposals and legislation, the CoR has recently adopted advisory opinions on digital education, the European Skills Agenda, policies supporting regional innovation, ethical guidelines for artificial intelligence (see the CoR Opinion on the AI Act, and the CoR opinion on the White Paper on AI), and cultural policy. The CoR articulates the views of local and regional authorities who derive their experience and policy recommendations from direct daily contact with the citizens.
The Committee of the Regions supports the objective to ensure that 70% of adults have basic digital skills by 2025 and wishes to develop further local and regional best practices aiming towards an open, secure, trustworthy, fair and inclusive digital environment for EU citizens. This is also in line with strategic initiatives aimed at getting Europe closer to the Digital Decade target of making sure 80% of Europeans have basic digital skills by 2030.
The Digital Decade: the role of EU regions in fostering skills
Progress towards the objectives of the Digital Decade could be enhanced by giving more visibility to regions on the Digital Skills and Jobs Platform, and ensuring they all have an opportunity to share experiences and challenges in implementing key digital and social EU policies.
"Indeed, local and regional projects often require a careful, socially responsible balance between the ethical aspects of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, and support of experimentation and innovation for future growth and jobs".
The regulation of artificial intelligence must follow from a democratically discussed and shared vision of the European citizens about the desirable future relationship between human and artificial intelligence, and it must be based on an encompassing consensus about how the future information society and markets in Europe should be organised.
In this context, ensuring a fair future perspective for human labour is a major ethical and policy issue. Public authorities, especially the local and regional authorities, are likely to be called upon to compensate for any reduction of employment and wages and increase in social inequality potentially related to efficiency gains from automation and artificial intelligence - if, in 10 years, half of today’s jobs could be replaced by automation. If supported by the EU and national level, local and regional authorities can contribute with appropriate re-skilling and re-training, social policies and job transition programmes, ensuring a real skills alliance between the public and private sectors investing in the workforce development.
The CoR’s position is that more EU support is needed: not only for advanced digital skills under the DIGITAL Europe Programme, but also for more basic skills - to empower citizens and enable their participation in the digital economy, digital governance; and make them active actors in our cultural and digital heritage.
Digital cohesion: how to bridge the skills gap across EU regions
If Europe has to address the persistent innovation gap and digital gap among regions across the EU, then the CoR can propose the idea of digital cohesion. It has been formulated in policy discussions held by CoR members with representatives of other EU institutions. The CoR has held that expansion of the digital hubs approach could reduce the digital innovation divide across the EU. Moreover, by analogy, innovation hubs under the European research area policies should be created, ideally one hub in each of the NUTS 2 regions across Europe (NUTS levels classify regions in the system of EU statistics, and the level 2 is the one at which the EU regional funds are implemented).
It would also be important to enhance teachers’ competence and skills to work with digital education as a new opportunity to be used in the education process. Facing this task requires regions to cooperate with national level entities, and benefit from available EU support. In particular, treating STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects as a regional educational priority and supporting collaborative initiatives and investment in this area, can reduce the negative impact of the brain drain and offer career opportunities for the active STEM workforce.
Yet another idea currently being explored would see the CoR cooperate more closely with other institutions and parts of the European Commission (like DG CNECT) on digital approaches to cultural heritage, building further synergies between fields like humanities and STEM.
Author’s bio
Jens Zvirgzdgrauds is Head of Sector of the Committee of the Regions SEDEC commission secretariat. SEDEC has a broad mandate spanning from innovation to culture and seeks to provide the regional perspective to EU policies in these areas. Jens Zvirgzdgrauds holds a Master’s degree in Economics and an LL.M degree in law. Recently he has been involved in such policy areas as the regulation of artificial intelligence, partnerships for regional innovation, and digital education support. Jens has studied for shorter or longer periods both in Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands and the UK. He is also a keen observer of developments in the area of technology and society in the East and South East Asian countries and is learning Chinese.
About SEDEC and the Committee of the Regions
The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) is the voice of regions and cities in the European Union (EU). It represents local and regional authorities across the European Union and advises on new laws that have an impact on regions and cities (70% of all EU legislation). SEDEC, the Commission for Social Policy, Education, Employment, Research and Culture is in charge of employment, social policies, education, training (including lifelong learning), sports and culture related dossiers. SEDEC is also responsible for equality, social economy and youth files, as well as research, innovation and artificial intelligence.
© European Union/Nuno Rodrigues
