The roadmap organises planned work around simpler rules, a more integrated Single Market, trade, affordable energy and the digital transition. It sets milestones for measures affecting company formation, investment, procurement, products, research and labour mobility. Energy priorities cover grids, infrastructure, security and decarbonisation, while the digital programme includes business wallets, communications networks, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, chips and quantum technology. Trade agreements and measures addressing supply-chain dependencies complete the programme. By placing these initiatives in a common timetable, the roadmap connects the policy agenda with specific stages of legislative work and investment projects.
The EU digital agenda, from strategy to implementation
Digital Acquis is a map of the EU's 2024–2029 digital-policy agenda, not a complete legal catalogue.
Eight policy priorities
Research, Technology & Industrial Capacity
Strengthening Europe’s science base, research infrastructures and breakthrough innovation, and translating critical technologies — from AI and quantum to advanced materials, biotech and bioeconomy — into industrial capacity, while safeguarding the integrity of European research.
Infrastructure & Strategic Resources
Building secure networks, sovereign compute, clean energy systems, space-based infrastructure and access to critical and circular raw materials, providing the operational backbone to deploy critical technologies at scale across the Single Market.
AI & Data Capabilities and Deployment
Building and governing Europe’s AI and data stack — from shared compute and trusted data spaces to compliance support, frontier AI and sectoral deployment across industry, public services and the wider economy.
Competitiveness, Innovation & Strategic Investment
Mobilising private and public capital, strengthening strategic demand and enabling EU scale-up by modernising state-aid, competition, procurement and capital-markets rules, de-risking strategic projects and improving startup-to-scaleup finance.
Human Capital, Skills & Talent Mobility
Developing Europe's human capital by equipping learners and workers with strong basic, digital and deep-tech skills; attracting and retaining talent; improving working conditions and job quality; and removing cross-border frictions through recognition and portability.
Single Market Deepening & Harmonisation
Deepening the Single Market by removing cross-border barriers, harmonising product, consumer and sectoral rules, and digitalising compliance, identity and enforcement so firms can scale across Europe while preserving trust and fair competition.
External Strategy, Security & Democratic Resilience
De-risking strategic dependencies, securing resilient supply chains, and deepening trusted partnerships; strengthening defence, borders, internal security and justice; and defending the Single Market against coercion and distortions, while reinforcing cyber, information and democratic resilience abroad and at home.
Implementation, Simplification & Better Regulation
Turning rules into results by streamlining and codifying the acquis, cutting administrative costs, stress-testing SME and competitiveness impacts, ensuring uniform enforcement, embedding digital-by-default and once-only implementation, and improving the quality and constitutional discipline of EU lawmaking.
Latest strategic plans
The declaration prioritises removing constraints on European competitiveness through simpler rules, improved access to capital, lower energy prices and stronger investment. It calls for deeper Single Market integration, support for research and scaleups, and progress towards an Energy Union. Proposals concerned with simplification and competitiveness receive particular emphasis. The declaration also links the clean transition with affordability and social balance. Its technological agenda focuses on investment in key technologies, including AI, reduced strategic dependencies, stronger supply chains and public procurement that encourages investment in Europe, supported by international partnerships and trade.
The 2026 work programme sets out planned legislation and policy initiatives across competitiveness, technology, energy and social policy. It includes changes to company rules, innovation and procurement, together with proposals concerning advanced materials, chips, cloud infrastructure, quantum technology and biotechnology. Other work covers product rules, circularity, energy systems, capital markets and competition procedures. Security and border-management measures sit alongside proposals on jobs, labour mobility, education, digital fairness and audiovisual media. Better regulation and intergenerational fairness are also part of this programme, which records indicative timetables and proposed legal bases.
Latest policy initiatives
The European AI Observatory is one of the governance measures in the Commission's Apply AI Strategy, adopted on 8 October 2025. The Commission says it will set up an AI Observatory to provide indicators to assess the impact of AI in the sectors covered by the strategy and in future sectors, to monitor developments and trends, and to follow the changes AI may bring to the labour market. The Observatory will also support the organisation of sectoral discussions and will be used for political analysis and decision making, as well as for informing the AI community and the broader public about recent developments in the field. The Commission adds that, based on the monitoring activities, it will make a proposal, in the context of the Digital Decade, for a public and private AI investment target.
The Commission will propose legislation to interconnect Member States’ next-generation critical communications used by police, civil protection, emergency medical, border and security authorities. EUCCS will set harmonised requirements for operational mobility, strong resilience and strategic autonomy, enabling secure cross-border voice/data, priority services and roaming, including satellite back-up via IRIS². It will modernise national systems, ensure interoperability and encrypted communications, and support crisis coordination from terrorism to large-scale disasters. Governance will link with the Preparedness Union’s all-hazards approach and ERCC, with EU-funded pilots building capabilities using European providers.
The Pact will mobilise long-term institutional capital for Europe’s most innovative companies and funds. In coordination with the EIB Group, the Commission will convene pension funds, insurers and other asset owners to make voluntary allocations to EU funds-of-funds, venture capital vehicles and direct investments in unlisted scaleups. Commitments will be benchmarked, transparent and aligned with strategic technologies, complementing InvestEU, the EIC and the Scale-Up Europe Fund. The Pact will drive pan-European deployment, crowd-in private capital through de-risking structures, and deepen capital markets by expanding late-stage equity supply and patient growth finance.