19.12.2022
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
L 323/7
The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) 2021 published by the Commission states that even before the COVID-19 pandemic Union businesses, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), struggled to find information and communications technology (ICT) professionals in sufficient numbers.
Digital training and education should therefore support all the actions to ensure that the workforce is equipped with the necessary current and future skills supporting the mobilisation of, and the incentive for, all relevant stakeholders to maximise the impact of investments in improving existing skills (upskilling) and training in new skills (reskilling) as well as life-long learning by the active population, in order to ensure that full advantage is taken of the opportunities of the digitalisation of industry and services.
Non-formal digital training provided by employers in the form of learning-bydoing should also be encouraged.
Education and training will also bring concrete career incentives to avoid and eliminate differences in opportunities and treatment between women and men.
(13)
A sustainable digital infrastructure for connectivity, microelectronics and the ability to process big data are critical enablers for taking advantage of the benefits of digitalisation, for further technological developments and for digital leadership by the Union.
In line with the Commission’s communication of 30 June 2021 entitled ‘A long-term Vision for the EU’s Rural Areas – Towards stronger, connected, resilient and prosperous rural areas by 2040’, reliable, fast and secure connectivity for everybody and everywhere in the Union, including in rural and remote areas, such as islands and mountainous and sparsely-populated regions, as well as the outermost regions, is needed.
Societal needs for converging upload and download bandwidth are constantly growing.
By 2030, networks with gigabit speeds should become available to those who need or wish to have such capacity.
All Union end-users should be able to use gigabit services provided by networks at a fixed location deployed up to the network termination point.
Moreover, all populated areas should be covered by a next-generation wireless high-speed network with performance at least equivalent to that of 5G.
All market actors benefiting from the digital transformation should assume their social responsibilities and make a fair and proportionate contribution to the public goods, services and infrastructures, for the benefit of all citizens in the Union.
(14)
Technological neutrality, which is provided for by Directive (EU) 2018/1972 of the European Parliament and of the Council (12), is a principle that should guide Union and national policies for digital connectivity infrastructure of the highest performance, resilience, security and sustainability, in order to benefit from prosperity.
All technologies and transmission systems able to contribute to the achievement of the gigabit connectivity, including the current and upcoming advancements of fibre, satellite, 5G or any other future ecosystem and next generation Wi-Fi should therefore be treated equally, where they have equivalent network performance.
(15)
Semiconductors are essential to most of the key strategic value chains and are expected to be in even higher demand in the future than at present, in particular in the most innovative technological fields.
As they are central to the digital economy, semiconductors are also critical enablers for the sustainability transition, thus also contributing to achieving the European Green Deal objectives.
Semiconductors with a low-energy footprint also contribute to positioning the Union as a leader in sustainable digital technologies.
It is intended that the resilience of the semiconductor value chain and semiconductor production capacity (including material, equipment, design, fabrication, processing and packaging) is strengthened, inter alia, by building large-scale innovative infrastructure in accordance with the Union law regarding environmental sustainability.
For example, quantum capacity and lowpower semiconductors are critical enablers to achieving the climate neutrality of highly secure edge nodes that guarantee access to data services with low latency, regardless of the user’s location.
(16)
Beyond enablers, existing and future technologies will be at the core of new products, new manufacturing processes and new business models based on the fair and secure sharing of data in the data economy, while ensuring the effective protection of privacy and personal data.
The transformation of businesses depends on their ability to adopt new digital technologies rapidly and comprehensively, including in industrial and services ecosystems that are currently lagging behind.
That transformation is particularly important for SMEs, which continue to face challenges in the take-up of digital solutions.
(12) Directive (EU) 2018/1972 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 establishing the European Electronic Communications Code (OJ L 321, 17.12.2018, p. 36).