August 2019

Lisbon Council Joins Competitiveness Council (Informal)

How can we make Europe a leader in the global data economy? How can we make sure that the important advances in data analytics – the diseases that will be cured, the traffic congestions alleviated, the social problems correctly analysed – are there for citizens to enjoy and companies and institutions to develop? In this ground-breaking study, the Lisbon Council explores A New Framework for Free Movement of Data in the Digital Age: Making Europe a Data Economy. The paper analyses an array of state-of-the-art proposals for facilitating data flows and proposes a three-point roadmap for improving the “free movement of data” in Europe: adopt “once-only” at the European level; strengthen European-level cyber security and crack down on unjustified data localisation; and develop more open and transparent policies for data sharing around a new concept of “co-ownership.” Paul Hofheinz, president of the Lisbon Council and co-author, formally launched the policy brief at the Presidency of the Council of the European Union conference on the digital single market under the patronage of Jüri Ratas, prime minister of Estonia, and presented the main findings to the Competitiveness and Telecommunication Ministers Council (Informal) in Tallinn, Estonia at the invitation of the Estonian Presidency.