The European Commission has a new Digital Commissioner. Previously a member of the European Parliament, Bulgaria’s Mariya Gabriel, was voted by the European Parliament to become Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society. During the past months, Ms Gabriel’s candidature was accepted by the Council of European Union and by the President of Commission.

The European DIGITAL SME Alliance welcomed Ms Gabriel’s appointment. “We are confident that she will further drive Europe’s digital transformation in line with the Commission’s Digital Single Market Strategy. We offer to the new Digital Commissioner our full support in ensuring that Europe’s digital SMEs are at the centre of the Commission’s initiatives. Only working together and providing a positive environment for digital enterprises – the greatest drivers of Europe digitisation – we can build a prosperous digital future – commented Oliver Grün, the President of DIGITAL SME.

The European DIGITAL SME Alliance has previously outlined its proposals for the future of Europe’s digital economy in its 10-ideas vision. The most recent DIGITAL SME campaign is to unleash the untapped potential of SMEs in the data economy by ensuring better access to machine generated data. The Commission announced that it will take initiatives on this matter before the end of 2017. Another important campaign by DIGITAL SME is the digital up-skilling of Europe’s workforce. The Alliance launched in 2016 its program, called #digitalSME4skills, whereby it pledged that digital SMEs will train 5.000 new ICT professionals by 2019. Further key proposals by DIGITAL SME include the creation of a European hub for digital SMEs on the example of German IT Mittelstand Kompetenzzentrum.

Photo: © European Union, 2017/Mauro Bottaro