Greece is speeding up its digital transformation
In the last five years, three European states managed to make the greatest digital progress at the level of the European Union. These are Greece, Italy and Poland, countries that are accelerating the digital transformation both at the level of economy and society, as shown by the data of the DESI 2022 index.
Although it is only in 25th place in the ranking of the most advanced digital states in the E.U. a position it held last year, our country leads the trio of European countries that have made the greatest digital progress in the last five years.
And third countries, the data shows, “significantly improved their DESI scores over the past five years, using sustainable investments with an enhanced policy focus in the digital sector, supported by European funding,” the report says. . Commission for the Digital Economy and Society Index DESI 2022.
Of course, Greece is still far from the digitally developed countries, such as Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, which will also win the title of digital champions of the EU in 2022. The next most advanced digital economies in Europe are Ireland, Malta and Spain.
Lagging in digital skills
The data of the DESI index, regarding the progress made in the EU member states. in the digital sector, are not particularly encouraging for Europe’s digital integration.
On the contrary, they show that it is still a long way from the ambitious digital goals that the EU itself has set. for the current decade. For example, in the area of digital skills, only 54% of the European population have at least basic digital skills, while 87% use the Internet at least once a week.
The aim of the journey towards the digital decade is, by 2030, for more than 80% of citizens to have, at least, basic digital skills. “The expectation that the increased use of digital tools during the pandemic that boosted digital literacy has not yet been reinforced,” the Commission says in the DESI 2022 report.
Finland, the Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden are the most advanced in terms of skills, while Romania and Bulgaria show significant gaps.
Lag in connectivity
A key issue is that of connectivity, an area in which our country’s providers have planned significant investments, especially in fiber optic networks. While the E.U. has full coverage of basic broadband infrastructure, the percentage of households that come from Fixed Very High Capacity Networks (VHCN), which offer gigabit speeds, reaches only 70%.
Meanwhile, 50% is now covered by fiber optic networks (FTTP), compared to 43% in the previous year. Despite the relative progress made in 2021, overall, a gap between urban and rural areas still exists in many Member States.
While Malta, Luxembourg, Denmark, Spain, Latvia, the Netherlands and Portugal are the most advanced Member States in terms of overall VHCN coverage (all showing residential coverage above 90%), in contrast , in Greece only 1 in 5 households has access to VHCN.
Coverage of residential areas with 5G networks increased significantly to 66% in 2021, compared to 14% the previous year, with much higher levels achieved in countries such as Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany.
However, depending on the spectrum bands listed, performance levels vary in terms of speed and capacity. The goal for 2030 is for all end-users in a fixed location (such as households and businesses) to be covered by a gigabit network and all residential areas to be covered by next-generation high-speed wireless networks with at least 5G equivalent performance.
Road race for the digitization of products
Regarding the integration of digital technologies, only 55% of SMEs have at least a basic level of adoption of digital technologies. In fact, there are significant differences between the member states: a percentage ranging from 86% in Sweden and 82% in Finland to 25% in Bulgaria and 22% in Romania.
To achieve the goal of the digital decade, at least 90% of SMEs in the EU it should have a basic level of digital intensity by 2030 (basic digital intensity means that a business has at least 4 out of 12 digital technologies).
The distance from this goal remains long. The use of the cloud reached 34% of EU products, the adoption of big data analysis and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies remains much more limited: only 8% of companies technical artificial intelligence and 14% big data.
Based on the political agreement on the proposed path to the digital decade, at least 75% of companies should adopt artificial intelligence, cloud and big data technologies by 2030.
As far as the digitization of the public sector is concerned, the goal is for all basic public services for citizens and businesses to be fully online by 2030.