Belgium is ready to tackle the presidency of the EU Council, which gathers authorities ministers from member states.
Throughout its six-month presidency, Belgium’s Digital Minister Mathieu Michel plans to collect political assist for an EU-wide blockchain initiative.
Belgium will give Europe’s bold blockchain initiative a political push when it takes the EU Council presidency in January, the nation’s digital minister mentioned in an interview with CoinDesk.
Mathieu Michel has already shared his grand imaginative and prescient for an EU-wide digital infrastructure that – on the very least – may retailer information reminiscent of driving licenses and property titles on a typical blockchain managed by the bloc’s governments.
Key to that plan is the European Blockchain Providers Infrastructure (EBSI) initiative, which started in 2018 as a technical undertaking. Michel mentioned the purpose is to rev up political assist for it throughout Belgium’s six-month Council presidency and that eight member states are already on board.
“Within the coming months, what we’ll do is to suggest to different European international locations to be concerned within the undertaking or to make use of the undertaking for utility,” Michel mentioned.
The Council gathers authorities ministers from the European Union’s 27 member states and is the bloc’s highest political entity.
Prolific regulation
In response to Michel, synthetic intelligence and blockchain know-how purposes could possibly be key to the EU’s pursuit of digital sovereignty, encompassing management over information and authority over our on-line world.
In terms of guardrails for the digital house, the EU has been prolific in recent times, introducing legislative plans for the whole lot from crypto to artificial intelligence, data sharing, a digital euro and even the metaverse. In fact, with the Markets in Crypto Asset (MiCA) regulation finalized this year, the bloc is set to become the first major jurisdiction in the world to have a comprehensive regime for the digital asset space.
Sufficient regulation, Michel says. Now, it’s time for Europe to place these digital improvements to good use.
EU international locations had been advised in 2020 how one can be part of the EBSI blockchain community by organising their very own nodes. However to keep away from information silos, purposes constructed on it must be interoperable throughout member states – one thing Michel mentioned blockchain may also help obtain.
“We’re actually bringing numerous consideration to privateness, but additionally transparency, management of the info. And with the blockchain, there’s a technical side that may carry us that. And that is actually, for instance, the interoperability between the appliance in France, Italy and Spain,” Michel mentioned.
To be first
Inviting political scrutiny to a know-how undertaking isn’t going to be a stroll within the park. The EU’s huge plans for a digital model of the euro have confronted opposition from lawmakers within the bloc who’re involved about privateness implications and the growth of presidency management.
Michel assures a unified blockchain infrastructure received’t be designed to gather any new information from residents.
“As we speak, numerous governments have information of the individuals, of the residents. What we’re speaking about is a little bit little bit of a paradigm shift,” he mentioned, including that the shift is in the best way the federal government provides that information again to residents.
It’s not obligatory to make use of blockchain, particularly if it’s not going to assist, Michel mentioned, noting there’s additionally an opportunity that blockchain tech could possibly be changed by one thing else altogether. Quantum computing, which guarantees ultra-fast problem-solving however continues to be far from coming to fruition, is already viewed as an existential threat to blockchain.
However that doesn’t imply the EU shouldn’t attempt, in accordance with Michel.
“In case you have a look at the sovereignty of Europe, we weren’t the primary at connectivity. We weren’t the primary in cloud providers. Right here, with blockchain know-how, we may attempt to be the primary,” Michel mentioned.
“If we aren’t upfront, it signifies that we’re already too late,” he added.