Digital Agenda Assembly event to take place in the EP on 22 June 2012

 What is the DAA?

The European Commission’s Communication (2010) on a Digital Agenda for Europe announced a yearly Digital Agenda Assembly (DAA), an event where stakeholders get together to discuss progress, including representatives of  Member States, EU institutions, citizens and industry.

This year’s DAA will take place in Brussels on 21-22 June.  The event is inter-institutional, organised by the European Commission together with the EP, the EESC and the Committee of the Regions. Within the EP, the ITRE Committee is co-organising with the EC the second day of plenary sessions in the EP hemicycle on June 22nd.

It is expected that, along with MEPs interested in the Digital Agenda, more than 800 relevant stakeholders will attend this year’s event.

Why is it important?

Given the current economic turmoil and the role that information and communications technologies (ICT) can play to fight the crisis the DAA12 focus theme will be on Digital Growth.

The Digital Agenda is the EU’s road map for bringing the benefits of a digital society and economy to Europe’s citizens. It is one of the seven EU2020 flagships put forward by the Commission to bring growth and jobs to Europe to support economic recovery.

More than 100 actions have been identified in the Digital Agenda, and these need to be implemented by 2020. To check up on progress, during the DAA12 days all stakeholders will be involved in assessing which solutions are needed to overcome the challenges ahead.

This year the discussions are particularly important since the DAA12 coincides with the Digital Agenda’s mid-term review.

Participation and programme:

A preliminary programme can be found at the Digital Agenda website: On the first day, eight policy workshops related to key challenges being considered in the midterm review will take place, while the second day will consist mainly of plenary discussions with high-level speakers, in the EP hemicycle.

All stakeholders can already participate in the DAA12 preparatory online phase, which consists of an online engagement space to prepare the eight workshop topics, including convergence in media platforms, broadband, ecommerce, social media, big data, cloud computing, security, and digital innovation and entrepreneurs.

For more background information to the DAA12 and the Digital agenda:

• View the full draft programme online and contribute to the online workshops platform
• Look at the DAE key publications, such as the Digital Agenda for Europe Annual Progress Report 2011.
• Read Vice-President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes’s speech at the ITRE Committee on 23 April 2012.