The most successful conference organized by an EU presidency since many years
The presidency of the Council of Ministers of the European Union changes every six months. The country holding the rotating presidency traditionally hosts a series of high-level conferences and events in its main cities, on topics allowing the presidency to show off with its achievements. Estonia followed the tradition and hosted the ‘European Dialogue on Internet Governance’ (EuroDIG) 2017 forum on June 6th and 7th of 2017 in the beautiful Estonian capital of Tallinn, a few days before the official start of its six months presidency.
EuroDig was created in 2008 as a ‘multi-stakeholder platform ‘to allow industry experts and government representatives to exchange views about the internet and how it is governed.
The Estonian President, Kersti Kaljulaid, opened the 2017 Talinn forum with a speech on the important role of governments in digitalization. One of the key quotes of her speech was:
H.E. Mme. Kersi Kaljulaid, President of Estonia, delivering a keynote speech at the opening of Eurodig
“While adopting digital technology can provide a major growth impact and transform governance, it can only truly happen if there are policies in place to do support digital adoption.”
Estonia has always been a frontrunner in eGovernment. For example, since 2005, Estonians can vote on line for the general elections and have no longer to queue in voting stations.
Besides the President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite and the Norwegian Prima-Minister Erna Solberg, high-level participants and speakers ranging from business leaders to representatives of the Commission, attended the forum.
ChinaEU organized a breakout session at the conference, placed under the motto of “Deepening EU-China cooperation in internet governance”, at the EuroDIG conference. The flash session was home to a lively discussion between the President of ChinaEU, Mr. Luigi Gambardella, and the founder and CEO of Chinalabs (a renowned China Cyberspace Think-Tank) Mr. Fang Xingdong.
Mr. Luigi Gambardella, President of ChinaEU, and Mr. Fang Xingdong, Founder & CEO of Chinalabs, co-chairing the session on deepening EU-China cooperation in internet governance
Both acknowledged that China now has the most internet users in the world with 731 million, more than the total population of Europe. They noted the significant effects that internet has had on the Chinese population’s daily life, changing the way payment is done, simplifying public services, stimulating entrepreneurship, and constructing a service-oriented government.
Fang Xingdong reminded that China attaches great importance to international exchanges and cooperation on the internet and that the Chinese government actively encourages Internet enterprises to go out and expand overseas through the Belt and Road Initiative. Luigi Gambardella agreed and argued that China can bring a lot of opportunities to Europe. He reiterated the importance of cooperation between China and the EU.
The message with the main take aways of the EuroDIG conference: the key role of governments in promoting Digitization.
