Romania has proven that it can have a successful digital presidency as of January 1, and we will press the foot hard down on the accelerator so that by the end of our term at the Council of the European Union we can make very good progress on the management of the existing dossiers, the Minister of Communications and Information Society, Alexandru Petrescu told the informal meeting of the Communications Ministers (TTE) in Bucharest.
“Romania has proven, since January 1, 2019, that it can have a successful digital presidency. We have had a very good run. We have succeeded in creating the premises for a substantive dialogue, so that the results have led to an agreement that underpinned the closure of the dossier on the re-use of public sector data, in January. In February, we closed the Digital Europe dossier, a very important program and a financial instrument involving the allocation of European funds for 2021-2027, and I assure you that we press the foot hard down on the accelerator in order to preserve the momentum and so that by the end of the presidency we can have a very good progress in managing the other dossiers, as well,” Petrescu said.
The Minister of Communications added that on the agenda of the Informal Meeting of EU Telecom Ministers, the issue of artificial intelligence needs to be analyzed both in terms of benefits and potential risks.
“We have the Informal Meeting of EU Telecom Ministers, and the discussion agenda features very important topics from a political and strategic point of view as regards the digital sector. We will analyze the shaping of the Digital Single Market concept post 2020, but we will also address more in-depth the concept of artificial intelligence. We want the TTE agenda – the EU Telecom Ministers Council – to find out more about artificial intelligence both in terms of benefits and in terms of mitigating risks. This is an informal meeting of ministers preparing decisions to be made at the Council of Ministers in June in Luxembourg, on whose agenda will be the actions and convergences that we identify today in our decisions, at the end of our presidency’s term,” the official said.
Minister of Communications and Information Society Alexandru Petrescu is chairing on Friday the Informal Meeting of EU Telecom Ministers (TTE), following Thursday’s proceedings of the third Ministerial Conference with the Eastern Partnership states, events organized at the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest.
The Informal Meeting of the EU Telecom Ministers (TTE) is attended by telecommunications ministers from EU Member States, as well as European Commission Vice-President, European Digital Commissioner Andrus Ansip. The main topics of discussion will focus on Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Single Market Strategy post-2020.
The current Digital Single Market Strategy was presented by the European Commission on May 6, 2015. The aim of this document is to reduce barriers and provide more business opportunities across the EU, in a legal, safe and accessible way, creating a functional digital single market and the right conditions for Member States, businesses and citizens to innovate and take advantage of digitization.
At the same time, artificial intelligence has been proposed as a topic of discussion at the meeting, with political, strategic and economic importance to Europe, as it can generate major benefits such as: treating diseases, reducing death rates in road accidents, combating climate change, minimizing the impact of agriculture on the environment, increasing Europe’s security, capacity, etc.
The Ministerial Informal Meetings are a common practice of each presidency of the Council of the European Union in order to provide the appropriate framework for a common reflection and exchange of views on topics of interest at European and international level.
