Methodology

Digital Acquis maps the EU's forward-looking digital policy agenda for the 2024–2029 legislative cycle. It is a strategic map, not a legal database. Publishing the inclusion and classification rules makes the dataset open to criticism and correction.

To date no comparable official document exists. The nearest equivalent, the Digital Decade Policy Programme of the previous mandate, was both narrower and incomplete. Digital Acquis fills that gap by drawing the separate institutional work silos into one forward-looking picture.

An initiative enters when EU institutions connect its purpose directly to Europe's digital transformation under the announced 2024–2029 agenda. Its main policy object need not itself be digital. This admits enabling measures on skills, energy, capital, security or implementation where the official connection to digital transformation is direct.

A general measure does not enter merely because it affects digital firms or uses digital administration. Inclusion requires a direct connection to a particular policy priority. The Scope page states the presumption in full.

In paraphrase, Kai's eight-step narrative arc moves from (1) scientific knowledge and industrial capacity; through (2) infrastructure and strategic resources; (3) AI and data deployment; (4) capital, competition and investment; (5) skills and talent; (6) Single Market integration; and (7) external security, partnerships and democratic resilience; to (8) implementation, simplification and better regulation.

These are functions, not regulatory domains. The same domain may appear in different policy priorities when it performs a different function in the sequence.

1. 1Research, Technology & Industrial Capacity
2. 2Infrastructure & Strategic Resources
3. 3AI & Data Capabilities and Deployment
4. 4Competitiveness, Innovation & Strategic Investment
5. 5Human Capital, Skills & Talent Mobility
6. 6Single Market Deepening & Harmonisation
7. 7External Strategy, Security & Democratic Resilience
8. 8Implementation, Simplification & Better Regulation

Each initiative is assigned to the one policy priority that best captures its primary strategic function in the eight-category sequence. Its formal sector or institutional home does not decide the result. If more than one placement is plausible, the initiative goes where a reader following that policy priority's function would most naturally look for it. Horizontal and cross-cutting initiatives appear once, in their primary category.

The status describes an initiative's broad stage across legislative and non-legislative forms. It does not state whether a law is in force or applies.

A substantial minority of initiatives carry no status at all. Where the source gives a date but nothing that identifies the delivery stage behind it, we show no status rather than infer one, so a page without a status is a deliberate silence rather than a missing field.

Delivered

already adopted, published or formally launched within the mandate.

In progress

formally proposed and currently in legislative negotiation.

Forthcoming

announced in Commission planning (Work Programme, Communications, Have-Your-Say portal, college meetings) with a defined or indicative delivery date.

Ongoing

continuous policy objectives, instruments or governance arrangements with no single delivery moment.

Each initiative carries one tag for its legal-policy form. Where the form is ambiguous, the adopted or proposed instrument's legal form decides the tag.

Nine of these tags come from Kai's source methodology. Investment and Joint Declaration were added in September 2026 because the source data uses both and the earlier nine-tag vocabulary left eight initiatives with no tag at all. Where the source names a package in the plural, the initiative takes the singular tag and is recorded as a package: Laws becomes Law, Investments becomes Investment.

Law

adopted or proposed binding legislation.

Communication

Commission non-legislative initiatives including Action Plans, Strategies, White Papers and Roadmaps.

Recommendation

formal Commission or Council Recommendation.

Guidelines

Commission guidance instruments adopted as soft law.

Framework

non-legislative programmatic structure (including pacts, alliances, charters, and coordination tools).

Funding

funding programme, fund, or financial vehicle.

Governance

institutional body, council, board, alliance, platform or coordinating entity.

Policy objective

declared political objective of the mandate without a single instrument vehicle.

Instrument

operational tool, methodology or procedure (used principally in Category 8 for Better Regulation tools).

Investment

capital commitment or investment programme, distinct from a funding instrument in that it commits money rather than administering a call.

Joint Declaration

declaration agreed jointly by more than one institution or member state.

The six summaries below paraphrase Kai's source methodology.

1. Rule 1

   Initiatives follow the EU's delivery unit.

   A communication, legislative proposal, fund, governance body or recommendation is recorded at the level at which EU institutions deliver it. A package issued together is recorded once.

2. Rule 2

   Planning gives context; initiatives carry the substantive map.

   Strategic Planning documents set the political and programming context. Digital Policy Initiatives record the concrete policy actions associated with those choices.

3. Rule 3

   Explicit horizontal objectives remain visible.

   An objective without one delivery vehicle may be included when Commission leadership states it for the 2024–2029 mandate. It receives the Policy objective tag and an ongoing date.

4. Rule 4

   Public planning can bring a file into scope before proposal.

   A planned initiative enters when public Commission material gives a sufficiently concrete indication of its content and timing. Its inclusion and classification may change after formal publication.

5. Rule 5

   Current-mandate development sets the timeline boundary.

   Earlier measures remain outside unless the current Commission is revising or developing them further. Measures extending beyond 2029 may enter when the current Commission proposes, agrees or puts them into operation.

6. Rule 6

   Cross-cutting initiatives land at their first systemic effect.

   An initiative invoked for several aims appears once, where its primary regulatory or programmatic function anchors the sequence.

The line between digital policy and non-digital policy that enables digital transformation is porous. The eight-category sequence is an editorial interpretation of an integrated political project, not a mechanical classification. We publish the rule so readers can question marginal inclusion and placement decisions.

The correction route explains what evidence to send.