OPINION
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loud computing offers a massive boost for Europe. Businesses receive the value-for- money and flexible IT services that the most
dynamic, secure innovative need. For the citizens of Europe, it is a
locker to store their favourite online material with instant
access whenever, wherever and
however they want. It also allows the government to offer integrated and effective public services that serve every citizen, without costly contracts. No wonder the cloud is worth billions of euros to the European economy. Recent revelations regarding security and privacy
have been astounding. We must respond, and we must protect ourselves. But this does not mean turning our backs on a huge opportunity, and the EU’s leaders realise this. At
the recent European Council, they
acknowledged the importance of cloud computing and explicitly asked the European Cloud Partnership to help put Europe at the forefront of this field.
The European cloud For me, a European cloud does not mean a new centralised European super-infrastructure. Our role
companies
is rather to federate and enhance national, regional and local initiatives, thus allowing people, products and services to freely circulate without borders or barriers. That
is what we have recognised in our
recent proposals for a connected continent, with a single market for telecoms networks that underpins connectivity. Already, many member
states are consolidating
isolated data centres into national clouds. However, we can go further than this. Through the Connecting Europe Facility, we can already support the key building blocks that enable pan-European services, like electronic invoicing and e-signatures. We can boost demand (particularly from the public sector, which makes up about one fifth of
the market),
through our launch of the platform for public sector cooperation with the “Cloud for Europe” initiative. We recently proposed the first Horizon 2020 work
programme (for the next two years), in which we are using a new instrument to subsidise joint public procurement for innovative cloud services (a so-called PPI). This will be concrete progress, moving
from joint experimentation to joint implementation. We have also set out the EU’s Insight Publishers | Projects Neelie Kroes
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