CEMA attended the Digitising European Industry Forum on 27 of March, where many stakeholders exchanged over the current developments and upcoming plans on how to digitise Europe in the coming years. This article features some of the key messages and exchanges from different stakeholders' sessions that took place on the importance and potential of digital technology for businesses in Europe. 

 

In particular for the agri-food sector, CEMA with 9 partner associations will be launching on 23 of April an EU Code of Conduct on agricultural data-sharing by contractual agreement. The Code sheds greater light on contractual relations and provides guidance on the use of agricultural data within the agri-food chain. 

Keynotes from the European Commission

Speeches from Commissioner Gabriel, deputy directors general Khalil Rouhana (DG CNECT) and Antti Peltomaki (DG GROW) contained all major challenges to succeed in creating a digital Europe: 

  • a transformation to improve competitiveness,
  • further support on digital skills & digital education,
  • an increase of digital deployment in the value chain,
  • the collaboration of stakeholders through networking,
  • a change of mindset and understanding the impact on the society,
  • testbeds while identifying good practices and the role of dissemination,
  • further awareness on cybersecurity issues.

‘Reform to perform’ panel discussion focus on SMEs with a role for Digital Innovation Hubs

In this session Members states representatives addressed the need to pay special attention to SMEs and the role Digital Innovation Hubs can play. As catalysts were also mentioned testbeds, leading by example and the necessary financial incentives to promote digital uptake. All agreed on the ‘reform to perform’! Although the drive would come mostly from the usual push-pull in the market, the major bottleneck remains in digital education. In France the acceleration of the process is mainly achieved by giving the industry more financial space. Italy clearly opposed more regulations, preaching a softer approach with guidelines on contracts related to data ownership, but kept the door open on more regulations for fair competition. From Commission side, Mr Rouhana mentioned agriculture as a good example of digitisation and robotization. He reminded that in the EU it is mainly the vast amount of public data that is not accessible enough. As a conclusion from this panel discussion COLLABORATION AND TRUST were identified as key elements to support the process.

Industry high-level panel

Messages from the industry delegates revealed the importance of equipment certification. In this context, the three areas to be covered would be privacy, safety and security. Concerning the scope, the B2C battle was seen as lost to the US and China. Instead, Europe should lead in the battle for B2B which it is currently leading. It was stressed not to underestimate China which is massively investing in B2B.

The speed of the learning and implementation curve will be a crucial factor. The freedom to experiment will be important.

The shift will happen from product to the services around the product. There will be the combination and parallel development of smart products, smart services and overall offered experience in which machine data will be the key resource.

Plans of the European Commission

In the framework of DEI, the European Commission plans to invest  €300M in next generation B2B platforms.

Overall the tendencies observed were towards contractual agreement and no additional legislation to grant additional access to data. Main reason for this decision is the possible tampering with the freedom to innovate. Individual platforms could play their role but interoperability is seen as the key. Sector data guidelines were mentioned as good practice.

B2B platforms

VDMA pointed the need for consolidation, but rejected the idea of one big platform to serve them all emphasizing a necessary dynamism in platforms.

Platforms will focus on two main activities: networking or building domain expertise, or a combination of both. VDMA  has a study ongoing on the topic that will be published at the April Hannover fair.

FIWARE presented itself as a big player on the market of platforms but one using open source software. It was set up with Commission’s funding to break down data silo’s including in farming. The two tools they developed is NGSI and data broker. There is collaboration in ETSI with the development of NGSI-LD and there are also looking at interoperability between RAMI 4.0, Industrial data space and FIWARE.

The FIWARE foundation was set up by Atos, Engineering, Orange and Telefonica.

Artificial Intelligence

Another point on the Commission desk was Artificial Intelligence (AI). The EU AI strategy will be launched together with the data package on 25 April 2018. The example of reduction of pesticides through intelligent controllers was mentioned (with self-learning systems to identify pests and to be able to act accordingly). Innovation and networking on AI and increasing the number of engineers with AI skills are key for competition. For the deployment of AI in SMEs, the Commission saw a role for digital innovation hubs.

At the same time, there are dangers related to AI. Therefore, clear principles must be set to create trust and acceptance. On the topic of AI the Commission is launching an alliance and there is a call open for experts.

New Vision for Contractual Public Private Partnerships (cPPP) and Join Undertakings

Last but not least, the Commission has initiated a Working Group looking at the future of the cPPP. 

Transparency - simplification (the landscape is too complex)  and exit strategy (long term strategy with no more Commission money at the end) emerged as keywords to build this environment.

A final report of the WG is expected in Dec 2018. A number of PPPs and their private organisations such as EU robotics, EFFRA,  BDVA, made their case. These organisations’ main focus is the coordination of activities at EU, national and regional level. The EU robotics’ PPP is called SPARC and it also focusses on agrifood. CEMA was therefore mentioned as a part of their collaboration network.