At the summit on 22 October 2021, EU leaders discussed the EU’s digital transition and adopted conclusions on the EU’s digital policy in the forthcoming years. The European Council called for a swift examination of the Commission’s proposal for the policy programme “Path to the Digital Decade”, with a view to implementing the 2030 Digital Compass.

The European Council also reviewed the progress made on a series of key legislative files. It encouraged the Council and the EP to reach an agreement on the Roaming Regulation, the Digital Services Act, and the Digital Markets Act as soon as possible. Furthermore, the need to make headway in the following areas was stressed:

• Implementing the remaining measures necessary to establish specific sectoral data spaces, as set out in the European strategy for data of February 2020, and establishing a roadmap for this process;
• Establishing an innovation-friendly regulatory framework for artificial intelligence in order to accelerate the uptake of this technology while safeguarding fundamental rights;
• Setting common standards for and agreeing on a coordinated approach towards a European Digital Identity framework;
• Promoting the creation of a cutting-edge European microchip ecosystem.

In order to tackle the problem of an increase in malicious cyber activities, the European Council called for accelerated work on the proposal for a revised Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems, the proposed Directive on the Resilience of Critical Entities, and the Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox (→ eucrim 4/2020, 282-283).