The European Commission (EC) organized on Tuesday the EU Digital Day 2018, which drew digital technology experts and enthusiasts from across Europe. The one-day event was held in collaboration with the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU and aimed to lay the basis for the European digital future with a focus on innovative technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and eHealth. The afternoon session was dedicated to the Blockchain Partnership Initiative.The European Commission (EC) organized on Tuesday the EU Digital Day 2018, which drew digital technology experts and enthusiasts from across Europe. The one-day event was held in collaboration with the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU and aimed to lay the basis for the European digital future with a focus on innovative technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and eHealth. The afternoon session was dedicated to the Blockchain Partnership Initiative.
The declaration on the establishment of the initiative was signed during the event by 22 European countries. Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel supported the Blockchain Partnership Initiative by saying:“In the future, all public services will use blockchain technology. Blockchain is a great opportunity for Europe and Member States to rethink their information systems, to promote user trust and the protection of personal data, to help create new business opportunities and to establish new areas of leadership, benefiting citizens, public services and companies.”Gabriel added:
“The Partnership launched today enables Member States to work together with the European Commission to turn the enormous potential of blockchain technology into better services for citizens.”
The full list of countries that have signed the declaration runs as follows: UK, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. All member states are invited to become part of the Blockchain Partnership.
At the start of the session, Jeremy Millar, the coordinator of the European Blockchain Observatory & Forum, described the position of Europe in the global evolution of the technology, stressing that the continent has the great opportunity to take the lead in this space. The EU Blockchain Observatory & Forum was initiated in February 2018 to accelerate the implementation of distributed ledger technology (DLT) across Europe. Millar revealed the three immediate objectives of the observatory:
- Create a knowledge repository about blockchain;
- Identify framework conditions suitable to accelerate blockchain innovation;
- Prioritize use cases.
Blockchain has already been successfully implemented at the government level in Dubai, Singapore, and Switzerland, Millar noted, going on to refer to several state-backed DLT projects in the Netherlands, France, Estonia, Spain, Malta, and the UK.
Besides Millar, the panel discussion dedicated to blockchain also featured Poland’s under-secretary of state Karol Okonski, MEP Sorin Moisa, and Dutch economic affairs state secretary Mona Keijzer.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
