Today, the interdepartmental steering committee on Digital Geopolitics held its first video conferencemeeting. Chaired by Deputy Minister Di Stefano, it was attended by the Minister for Innovation and Digitisation Paola Pisano and the Deputy Minister of Economic Development Mirella Liuzzi. Also present were representatives of the Department for European Policies, the Italian Competition and Markets Authority and the Italian Communications and Data Protection Authority.
The steering committeehas been established to foster the exchange of ideas and expertise betweenpublic administration entities and to coordinate their efforts to redefine Italy’s position in terms of its international strategic projection on digital issues, starting from the Italian G20 Presidency, through the EU Digital Services Act and the OECD Digital Tax, the European Cloud project, the European digital identity and international cyberspace law. It also deals with initiatives aimed at promoting the digital sector abroad, as well as attracting tech investments to Italy.
The Minister for Innovation and Digitisation, Paola Pisano, stressed that the global and international dimension is an “inherent component of digital policies”. “Italy must achieve adegree of autonomy in the use of certain technologies,” she continued, “and must act in synergy with European Countries on the rights of digital users and the regulations affecting the major tech giants. All countries that have undertaken a clear direction and a strategy in the development of digital technology have performed better, in terms of both the Desi- Digital Economy and Society – Index in European Union Countries, and the European eGovernment Action Plan. This is why we very much welcome today’s meeting”.
“Italy’s voice on these forward-looking issues must be strong – Deputy Minister Di Stefano said – because our country has a lot to gain from them, in economic terms for our tech industry and, more generally, from a new framework of clear rules at the international and European level. We believe that Europe can and must improve its digital capacity to aim for greater autonomy, if not independence, from the non-European tech giants, by building tools and solutions that are appropriate to European socio-economic standards”.
“We need to promote synergy between government departments – Deputy Minister Liuzzi said – to achieve the common goals of digital innovation in the country. This is why the Ministry for Economic Development is committed to implementing cutting-edge policies on Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain and has contributed to the process defining the Digital Services Act, which can contribute to a reliable, fair and inclusive digital transformation”.
