In particular, fields such as “e-Health, digital education, e-Government, data sharing and broadband connectivity,” should receive particular attention following the current coronavirus crisis, the draft Council of the EU conclusions on Shaping Europe’s Digital Future, note.

Moreover, the document, dated 1 April, states that EU should also move to ensure that member states are able to award 5G spectrum frequencies by the end of 2020. Several member states have already announced intentions to postpone frequency auctions as a results of the ongoing public health crisis.

EU leaders had been expected to mark a series of commitments in the digital arena as part of the recent European Council summit. However, such items fell off the agenda as member states were forced to attend to the more urgent matters of addressing Europe’s response to the ongoing public health crisis.

The Croatian Presidency now intends to discuss the draft conclusions in the Council Working Party for Telecoms, next meeting in May, dependent on any future restrictions imposed as part of the COVID-19 lockdown.

The Presidency then aims to have the conclusions adopted by the TTE Council in Luxembourg on 5 June 2020.

Data sharing

The draft conclusions note the need of the EU to facilitate the “sharing of data amongst businesses and institutions, to gain critical mass and be successful in the data economy currently dominated by a few powerful players.”

In February, as part of its communication A European Strategy for Data, the European Commission had announced plans to exploit the “untapped potential” of vast troves of industrial data, in the creation of nine common EU data spaces across sectors including heathcare, agriculture and energy, as well as the establishment of a Data Act in 2021, that could “foster business-to-government data sharing for the public interest.”

More recently, the current public health crisis has proved to be an accelerator in the Commission’s intention to liberalise the EU data economy. Towards the end of March, the executive requested telecom firms to hand over “anonymised mobile metadata to help analysing the patterns of diffusion of the coronavirus.”

Smartphone vs virus, is privacy always going to be the loser? In Europe, officials, doctors and engineers are looking at how smartphones could be enlisted in the war against the spread of the new coronavirus.

The move sparked concern by privacy activists in Brussels and beyond, and Renew MEP Sophie in ’t Veld, wrote to Breton, pressing him to ensure that the data received from telecommunications firms remains anonymised.

In terms of the broader use of data to analyse the spread of the coronavirus, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton told MEPs last week via videolink that the Commission is monitoring the use of mobile applications used in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic to make sure that the bloc’s “values and rules” are not being infringed upon.

This came after a coalition of European stakeholders launched a new contact-tracing proximity technology on Wednesday (1 April), The project, dubbed Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT), analyses bluetooth handshakes that may have been registered between two smartphone users when they come into close proximity with one another.

5G

In terms of next generation mobile telecommunications, the conclusions note that 5G spectrum frequencies should be introduced by the end of 2020. However, Spain, Austria, Portugal and France have all been forced to put their spectrum auctions on the back foot for the time being, while the bloc reels from the consequences of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Presidency’s conclusions also note that EU companies should also be incentivised to start developing and building technology capacities in 6G, an area previously highlighted in the EU’s industrial strategy, which noted that a strategic European partnership on research and innovation in the field of smart networks and services beyond 5G/towards 6G, should be established.