Digital tracking

The digital transition is one of the top political priorities of the Commission, as identified in several strategic papers and in the Recovery and Resilience Facility, also due to it being a necessary contributor to what is known as ‘open strategic autonomy’. The digital transition implies an evolutionary and transformative process whereby the EU seeks to attain global leadership in the digital field in a fair and democratic manner. It is a key driver for the EU’s prosperity, economic recovery and resilience and a critical enabler of innovative solutions to address global challenges. 

On 9 March 2021, the Commission presented its vision for the EU’s digital transformation by 2030, with a digital compass for the EU’s digital decade that evolves around four digital dimensions:

• skills,
• secure and sustainable digital infrastructure,
• digital transformation of businesses, and
• digitalisation of public services.

On 14 December 2022, the co-legislators adopted the Digital Decade policy programme, taking up the digital compass and its vision, setting up quantitative EU targets for the four cardinal points to be reached by 2030, and establishing a cooperation mechanism with the Member States to progress towards these targets.

How much do we spend?

The 2024 stocktaking exercise of the EU spending programmes was conducted for the implementation of the 2021-2027 EU budget during the years 2021-2023. The findings of the stocktaking exercise, as presented below, show that the EU budget, including NextGenerationEU, is channelling significant contributions to all of the digital transition’s key dimensions. 

This stocktaking exercise is a crucial stepping stone towards a dedicated tracking methodology for digital expenditure. The Commission’s ambition is to build on the findings of the stocktaking exercise concerning the concrete contribution of the EU budget towards the digital transition to develop a fully-fledged, robust methodology to be applied consistently across all programmes and providing a solid aggregate contribution of the EU budget towards the digital transition. The exercise is being continued this year and has given some results showing which areas the funding is dedicated to. Since not all programmes are in the position to apply the proposed methodology, the results do not yet show the complete picture.

Based on the results of the stocktaking exercise, EUR 205.5 billion of the EU budget (including NextGenerationEU) was dedicated to the digital transition from 2021 to 2023, which represents almost 17.5% of the total EU budget ⁽¹⁾. An important part of this was contribution of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, which in the same period contributed 24% of its entire budget towards the digital transition. 

^{(1)Given that a fully-fledged tracking methodology for the digital contributions of the EU budget has not yet been established, any aggregation of the contributions of individual programmes at this stage should be interpreted with caution. This is because the methodologies employed by individual spending programmes may not be strictly comparable. Despite this, such aggregation can still provide a general estimate idea of the total digital contribution from the EU budget.} 

Estimated contributions to the digital transition of the EU budget programmes, in 2021-2023 (cumulatively) ^(*)

^{(*) Including NextGenerationEU, in EUR million. 
For readability purposes, the scale is broken, as the Recovery and Resilience Facility provides more than 10 times more support to the digital transition than the next most contributing programme.} 

^{The abbreviations used stand for: RRF – Recovery and resilience facility; HORIZONEU – Horizon Europe; NDICI – Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument – Global Europe; DIGITALEU – digital Europe programme; ESF PLUS – European Social Fund+; JTM – Just Transition Mechanism; SPACE – EU Space Programme; CEF – Connecting Europe Facility; IPA III – Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance III; IBMF – Integrated Border Management Fund; ISF – Internal Security Fund; CREATIVEEU – Creative Europe Programme; CAP – common agricultural policy; EMFAF – European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund; SECURE CONNECTIVITY - EU Secure Connectivity Programme; TSI – Technical Support Instrument; ESC – European Solidarity Corps; OCT – Decision on the Overseas Association, including Greenland; RIGHTS – Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme; TCC – Turkish Cypriot community.
Source: European Commission based on the first stock-taking.}

Almost all programmes that are part of the EU budget contribute to the digital transition. Constraints on data availability only allowed digital-relevant expenditure for the 2021-2023 period to be tracked for 30 spending programmes (out of 48 with EU budget implemented in 2023). Among them are programmes that are likely to have substantial contributions, particularly the European Defence Fund and the union secure connectivity programme. Furthermore, the digital contribution of some programmes is likely to be largely underestimated at this stage: this is the case of the common agricultural policy and InvestEU. 

In terms of thematic concentration, the EU budget is primarily supporting government and public bodies in digitalising key sectors, in particular health systems and transport. Significant efforts are also being made to support the digitalisation of businesses, to help the acquisition of digital skills (advanced and basic) and to support research and innovation, along with key advanced digital infrastructure and technologies (such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence and cloud/edge computing). More information is provided in the next section. 

For shared management programmes and the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the digital contribution can be calculated for the entire implementation period of the programme, i.e. not at the individual year level. The amount presented for each year is obtained by comparing the total digital contribution over the entire implementation period to the share of the programme envelope committed for that year. 

Digitalisation of businesses and public services

The result of the 2024 stock-taking exercise shows that the EU budget (including NextGenerationEU) is making a significant contribution to the digitalisation of the private and public sectors. Our estimates for the years 2021 to 2023 are EUR 55.8 billion for the support of the EU budget to e-government (including the digitalisation of health and justice systems, or of the transport and energy network) and EUR 36.1 billion for the support to the digitalisation of businesses. The Recovery and Resilience Facility as well as the European Regional and Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund are important contributors to these investments. In the years 2021 to 2023, 9% of the EU amounts from the European Regional and Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund have been used to finance interventions that advance the digital transition, in particular supporting small and medium-sized companies and public services. 

Estimated contributions of the EU budget to the digitalisation of public services (2021-2023)^(*)

^{(*) Including NextGenerationEU. 
These amounts are the result of the first stock-taking exercise conducted for the years 2021 to 2023 and exclude the external action programmes and the common agricultural policy due to methodological limitations.
Source: European Commission, based on the 2024 stock-taking exercise.}

The EU budget is also contributing significantly to the digitalisation of transport system, with an estimated EUR 7 billion dedicated to it in 2021 and 2022, of which almost EUR 6 billion from the Recovery and Resilience facility and EUR 0.7 billion from the Connecting Europe Facility.

Supporting the development and deployment of digital technologies and research

From 2021 to 2023, the estimates indicate that the EU contributed EUR 29.6 billion to investment in digital capacities and deployment of advanced technologies, and EUR 26.9 billion to research, including EUR 14 billion from Horizon Europe. The main contributing programmes are the Recovery and Resilience Facility, Horizon Europe, the space programme, the European Regional and Development Fund, the Cohesion Fund, the Just Transition Mechanism and the digital Europe programme. 

Investing in digital skills

In the years 2021 to 2023, the EU budget including NextGenerationEU is also making a significant contribution to both basic and advanced digital skills, estimated at EUR 26.8 billion. The main programmes contributing are the Recovery and Resilience Facility (EUR 23.7 billion) and the European Social Fund+ (EUR 2.3 billion). Another important contributor was Erasmus+.

Enhancing digital connectivity

The EU budget including NextGenerationEU is contributing to enhancing digital connectivity, which will give all citizens and businesses new opportunities to benefit fully from the digital single market and accelerate economic growth. Amounts dedicated to connectivity, including investments in very high-capacity broadband network and 5G network coverage, are estimated to have reached EUR 14.8 billion for 2021-2023. The main programmes contributing are the Recovery and Resilience Facility (with EUR 13.6 billion), the Regional Funds and the Connecting Europe Facility. 

The common agricultural policy is playing a key role to improve broadband access in rural areas, by supporting broadband infrastructure and improved access to e government. Based on the latest rural development programmes, over the course of the current programming period, the common agricultural policy will have helped nearly 13 million people living in rural areas to benefit from improved access to information, communication and technological services and infrastructure. 

The European Social Fund+ focuses on investment in digital skills. For example, the ‘Renewable energy new electric skills’ project addresses the need for new skills by creating training courses for electrotechnical roles. The new skills are acquired through augmented reality, which makes training more engaging and ensures that it remains relevant in a rapidly advancing digital landscape. Another example is ‘Línia Dona’, which helps disadvantaged women find work in Catalonia. The training complements job placement and includes, among others, digital skills.

Under the Connecting Europe Facility, 3 000 terabits per second of additional capacity were created by deployed backbone networks, including submarine cables. A total of EUR 450 million was awarded to 24 projects to support the digitalisation of the trans-European transport network railway network, through support to the European Railway Traffic Management System technology. The programme also supports smart electricity grids projects and contributes to the inclusiveness of outermost regions and overseas countries and territories by connecting them with up-to-date submarine backbones and ensuring that they can also benefit from advanced wireless and mobile connectivity.

Under the space programme, 3.5 billion Galileo-enabled devices were in use in 2023. The positioning accuracy performance of Galileo is three times better when compared to other global navigation satellite systems, with excellent availability. During the year, 260 000 registered users of the Copernicus climate change service had access to about 108 terabytes of quality-controlled climate data per day. Copernicus provides a wide range of Earth observation data and related model products. These models allow for forecasts and predictions to be made in certain thematic areas and are valuable content for a vast range of commercial applications, both in the professional and consumer domains. 

The twin transition: exploiting synergies

The twin green and digital transitions are deeply interconnected, offering the potential to create significant synergies. The EU budget is instrumental in this process, acting as a key enabler in unlocking these synergies. It provides the necessary financial support for initiatives that align with the objectives of both transitions, thereby ensuring that the potential benefits can be fully realised. The table below illustrates some of the synergies that are being achieved with the support of the EU budget.