Joint letter: DIGITALEUROPE and 10 other leading digital associations call on G20 leaders to drive the global digital recovery

DIGITALEUROPE comes together with ten of our sister associations to make concrete policy recommendations to the G20. As a member of this year’s B20, DIGITALEUROPE is committed to bridging the gap between industry, business, and our digital future.

Director General Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, an official member of the B20 Digital Economy Task Force, said:

“The G20 Digital Economy Task Force meeting on May 17 comes at a crucial time. We must act now to harness digital transformation to drive recovery and build resilience into the world economy.

Throughout this pandemic, the digital sector has been be a key driver of employment, economic growth and innovation, as well as a guarantor of security. Going ahead, digital solutions will continue to play a key role in developing the technology necessary to drive action on climate change and other environmental urgencies.

Along with our industry partners, we look forward to engaging with the G20 and its members on these key priorities.”

In a joint letter addressed to G20 governments, DIGITALEUROPE and 10 other leading international digital associations have put forward the following concrete policy proposals:

• Avoid digital protectionism or imposing barriers to trade in recovery planning and economic stimulus packages;
• Ensure that regulatory approaches impacting digital services, technologies and infrastructure are non-discriminatory;
• Invest in strengthening the resilience of global value chains;
• Commit to facilitating the free flow of data that recognizes the need for interoperability of regimes across borders and refraining from imposing damaging data localization requirements;
• Follow the Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT) principles;
• Support multilateral efforts at the OECD to establish a set of common practices and legal processes for ensuring trusted law enforcement; and
• Establish common approaches to the regulation of emerging technologies, especially artificial intelligence (AI).