The Fourth Industrial Revolution is well underway, and the member states of the European Union have fallen behind China and the United States in developing the necessary infrastructure to fully leverage its potential. The strength of the EU is its diversity of cultures and languages, but in the case of innovation, this diversity is proving to be a barrier to scaling new developments. While trade in goods may be high, digital trade remains limited by lack of harmonisation in digital markets, and the interventions of certain states that make investment more cumbersome.

Failing to make the necessary investments to develop a 21st Century digital infrastructure in time will put the EU at a competitive disadvantage in global markets, hampering economic growth for the foreseeable future. At the foundation of technologies such as artificial intelligence and the internet of things, which promise huge gains in productivity, is the need for robust digital infrastructures and the accessibility of next generation bandwidth technologies.

The Consumer Choice Center’s Digital Single Market campaign seeks to better the existing digital foundations of the European Union by contributing to the liberalisation and harmonisation of the European Digital Market.