Jean-Claude Juncker, the new European Union Council President, made expanding economic growth and jobs the number-one priority of his campaign platform. “The key ingredient,” he declared, is to “create a digital single market for consumers and businesses” with the aspiration of generating €500 billion and “hundreds of thousands of jobs” during the mandate of the incoming Commission. President Juncker is right to recognize the digital economy as a key driver of growth.
To implement this agenda, Juncker was to propose his new line-up of commissioners. He introduced the position of “vice president for the digital single market” with the aim of making Europe “a world leader in information and communications technology, with all the tools to succeed in the global digital economy and society.”
To fill this position, Juncker named former Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip. He is assigned a broad mandate to “steer and coordinate” the work of several commissioners. Among other duties, he is tasked with overseeing the conclusion of EU negotiations on data protection rules and review of the Safe Harbor framework with United States enabling flows of data across the Atlantic, both within six months.
The nomination of Ansip to this pivotal position puts a spotlight on Estonia as a model for his vision of a digital Europe. As Ansip put it to the European Parliament, he has “had the opportunity to be at the forefront of a digital transformation of a country, which today excels in multiple areas of e-government, safe and secure private and public digital solutions, and which takes cyber security and data protection seriously.” Estonia’s president, Tomas Hendrik Ilves, is a hands-on global leader on cybersecurity and, in the event of another event like the 2007 cyberattacks believed to originate from Russia or a physical invasion, the country has a plan for virtual continuity.
Estonian vice-President designate of Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip answers questions during his hearing at the European Parliament in Brussels on October 6, 2014. (Photo by John Thys/AFP/Getty Images)
The BBC called this Baltic country of just 1.3 million people “E-stonia” and one of the founders of Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm recently dubbed it “the world’s most tech-savvy government.” Just as Silicon Valley and Seattle’s startup cultures are fueled by venture funds from Google and Microsoft millionaires (and others), Estonia has its Skype millionaires.
At his parliamentary committee hearing, Ansip showed himself to be savvy politically as well as technically, weaving a careful path between warnings to the beastly Americans and the challenges of digital competitiveness. He also declined to draw lessons for Europe from Estonia and instead pointed to digital successes in other states.