DIGITALEUROPE Summer Summit 2024

The second half of June is inevitably marked by the DIGITALEUROPE Summer Summit in Brussels. AAVIT representatives could not miss the cluster matchmaking at this year’s event either.

Europe today faces challenges that are crucial to its economic security. Access to critical technologies and the innovative strength of European companies are key factors. Unfortunately, Europe is lagging behind – only 10 of the top 100 technology companies by market value and only 8 % of unicorns come from the EU. These statistics emphasize the need for a rapid and effective response to this common challenge.

This year’s Summer Summit therefore opened discussions on the future of European technology and the strength of Europe’s innovation potential.

Europe as a digital leader?

Ahead of the summit, DIGITALEUROPE published The EU’s Critical Tech Gap: Rethinking economic security to put Europe back on the map, which highlights the fact that Europe is lagging behind in 7 out of 8 critical technology areas, notably semiconductors and artificial intelligence. The study highlights that Europe’s economic security cannot be achieved only by mitigating risks, but also by exploiting the opportunities and potential of the Digital Single Market.

The study identifies three key areas on which Europe should focus:

• Scalability in the EU: The fragmentation of the Single Market and the lack of a coherent strategy hinder European companies from growing and competing globally.

• Investment: Europe lags behind the US and China in investment in critical technologies. The EU does not have a common capital market, public funding for R&D is fragmented and inefficient at national level, and innovation is not sufficiently commercialised to maintain Europe’s competitive advantage.

• Regulatory environment: European businesses often face strict regulations that hinder their growth. A more favourable regulatory environment is needed to encourage innovation and expansion.

Keynote speeches and panel discussions

As always, the DIGITALEUROPE Summer Summit was about finding concrete solutions to make Europe a digital superpower. The series of speeches and panel discussions opened with a debate with Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition, who highlighted the crucial role of the European Single Capital Market in enabling businesses to scale faster:

“Scaling up requires big capital and top talent. We currently lack both. We will not have large-scale financing if we do not have a capital market.”

Margrethe Vestager, Evropská komisařka pro hospodářskou soutěž

A panel discussion entitled “Europe’s Tech Landscape: Strengths Weaknesses, and the Road Ahead” featured Denis Redonnet, Ann Mettler, Luuk van Middelaar and Katrhin Watsonn discussing how past failures can steer Europe towards greater competitiveness:

“Unless European businesses know how to scale better, we will turn into an incubator for the world”.

Ann Mettler, Vice President of Breakthrough Energy

Finally, the Portuguese State Secretary for Economic Affairs, João Rui Ferreira, spoke about the need to streamline regulation, increase investment and strengthen partnerships with third countries:

“Global competitiveness and economic security must be at the heart of EU policy.”

João Rui Ferreira, Portuguese State Secretary for the Economy

Jaromír Hanzal new member of the Board of Directors

The Summer Summit 2024 was special because the results of the elections to the various working groups were announced, as well as to the Board of Directors of DIGITALEUROPE, of which AAVIT Director Jaromír Hanzal became a member!

As we have only been active in DIGITALEUROPE for just over two years, this is a great achievement and recognition of his work and our presence in Europe’s largest digital association. He will be on the board of directors with other representatives from major industry associations (e.g. techUK, Ametic, ITL etc.) as well as global digital giants (e.g. Siemens, Intel, Bosch, Nokia, SAP etc.).

We believe that this is another important milestone in AAVIT’s growth and strengthening our position in the Czech Republic and Europe. We are ready to actively participate in the discussion on the future shape of the digital economy that will take place in the coming months in view of the EP elections that have just taken place.